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REV. JOSEPH COOK. 



LAMPS OF 

THE TEMPLI 



CHOICE EXAMPLES 

OF 

THE ELOQUENCE OF THB 
MODERN PULPIT 

" The Lord gave the Word: 

Great was the Company of the Preachers" 

compileb'by 

V 

THOMAS W. HANDFORD 



Author of '-Boys of the Bible," "History of Illinois," Etc., Etc. 
Editor of "The Elmo Series," Etc. 




Chicago: 
LAIRD & LEE, Publishers 




COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY LAIRD & LEE 

(ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.) 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

A True Revival of Religion— Henry Ward Beecher 214 

A Word to the Poor— Washington Gladden, D. D 280 

Apples of Gold in a Basket of Silver— James Hamilton, D. D 65 

•'Back to Jesus"— John Clifford, M. A., LL.B 33 

Bible Study; An Intellectual Stimulus— John H. Barrows, D.D — 219 

Books! Books! Books!— Charles F. Dole 203 

Building the Spiritual Temple— W. M. Taylor, D. D 68 

•'Buy the Truth and Sell it Not"— J. L. Withrow, D. D 45 

Changes of the Passing Century— Rabbi Schiendler 52 

Character— Bishop Phillips Brooks 266 

Children, the Poetry of the World— Thomas Binney, D. D 67 

Christ and Nicodemus— Mark Guy Pearse 74 

Christ and Other Masters— Simon J. McPherson 113 

Christian Socialism— L. P. Mercer 281 

Death a New Birth— Charles Kingsley 242 

Death the Great Revealer— O. B. Frothingham, D. D 44 

Devotion Not a Mistake— James Martineau, D. D 222 

Fellowship With Christ— F. A Noble, D. D 201 

Following Hard After God— Alexander Maclaren, M. A., D. D 140 

Forgive and Be Forgiven— James Freeman Clarke 144 

God Speaks in Many Ways— Theodore P. Munger 124 

God's Plan of Education— F. W. Gunsaulus, D. D 59 

Growing in Grace— E. M. Goulburn, D. D 168 

Holy Living— C. H. Spurgeon 249 

Hope in the Midst of Povery— Henry Ward Beecher 139 

How to Be Insignificant— Fred A. Atkins 131 

How to Get a Strong Christian Character— T. DeWitt Talmage 211 

"Judge Not," A Plea for Charity— Alexander Maclaren, M.A., D.D. 269- 

Life, Death, Immortality— Henri Fred Amied 129 

Life, a Flask of Precious Ointment— Jenkyn Lloyd Jones 193 

Living Well— Dr. Gregg 313 

"Love Is Always Winged"— H. W. Powers, D. D 63 

Musings for a New Year's Morning— Theodore Parker 161 

Our Thought of God— E. E. Hale, D. D 163 



CONTENTS 



Paul the Hero of His Day— Henry Ward Beecher 123 

Plea for a Pure Judiciary— Frank M. Bristol 274 

Possession and Responsibility — George C. Lorimer, LL.D 244 

Progressive Teachings of the Bible— John Henry Barrows, D. D. . . 71 

Rearing Parents — John Love, Jr., D. D 215 

Religion in the Home— Theodore Cuyler, D. D 107 

The Bell of Peace— David Swing ' 90 

The Book of Revelation— H. M. Scudder, D. D 262 

The Carcass: The Vultures— Bishop Cheney 251 

The Cathedral of the Soul— D. Schely Schaff 189 

The Character of Christ— "W. E. Channing 246 

The Church of Christ— Henry Hopkins, D. D 180 

The Claims of the World and the Rights of Man— Cardinal 

Manning 116 

The Dignity and Rights of Labor— Cardinal Gibbons. 155 

The Energies and Ambitions of Life — Bishop Phillips Brooks 226 

The Genius of Christianity— Henry Ward Beecher 81 

The Grand Message of the Years— Rabbi Schiendler 170 

The Grandeur of Life— Bishop J. P. Newman, D. D 87 

The Infinite Benefits of Suffering— Brook Foss Wescott 188 

The Jewish Conception of God— E. E. Hale, D. D 23 

The Juggernaut of Monopoly— Cardinal Gibbons 198 

The Kingly Power of Christ— Simon J. McPherson, D. D 233 

The Law of Life in Jesus Christ— F. W. Gunsaulus, D. D 178 

The Message of a Millionaire to Millionaires— George C. Lorimer, 

LL.D 1 35 

The Morally Sublime— Dr. Wayland 29 

The Plea of the Church— Canon H. P. Liddon, D. D 286 

The Poverty of Jesus, a Christmas Homily to the Rich — Bishop 

Phillips Brooks & 

The Presence of God the Glory of the Church— C. H. Spurgeon 57 

The Recoil from Unbelief— Donald Praser, D. D , 256 

The Secret of God's Harvest Fields— W. C. Gaunett, D. D 120 

The Slave Trade in Equatorial Africa— Cardinal Lavigerie 231 

The Spirit of Our Age— Canon H. P. Liddon 121 

The Value of Public Opinion— Archdeacon Farrar 96 

Thirsting After God— Alexander Maclaren, M. A., D. D 13 

Three Things for Christians to Do — C. H. Spurgeon 127 

Unappreciated Blessings; a Review— Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch 98 

Wanted, a Hero!— Simon J. McPherson, D. D 240 

Water and Wine— David Swing 95 

What Must We Believe Concerning the Bible?— Heber Newton, 

D. D 224 

What Shall We Be?— John Foster 336 

Why Not a Christian?— Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D 236 

Worldliness in the Church— Cardinal Manning 150 



PRBFAGB 



The beams that shine upon the ways of men from the 
Lamps of the Ancient Temples of God are part of our best 
inheritance. The world would be dark indeed but for these 
lights of earlier days God is light, and all along the path- 
way of ages He has kept the Lamps of His Temple aflame 
with unwasting oil. Not many wiser words have been 
spoken in these later generations than those spoken by 
John Robinson, when he bade the embarking pilgrims be 
sure that God had yet "more light to break forth from His 
work," and then urged them to be as willing to receive it 
from others as they had been to receive it from Him. 
The voices that have spoken for God in the last half cen- 
tury have indeed been filled with "tuneful breath," and 
their words have made the wilderness glad. The design of 
the compilation of this book was to gather in one handy 
volume some of the best examples of the power and 
eloquence of the modern pulpit. In the very heart of this 
design there lay a strong desire to show, by a large variety 
of selections, that the light that beams from these many 
lamps is substantially one. And, further, the compiler was 
ambitious to show by the best of all proofs that the com- 



PREFACE 



mon charge that the pulpit does not concern itself about 
current questions, and especially about the great social 
problems of our age, is wholly and entirely a slander. That 
such a charge is false, the pages of this book abundantly 
prove. The lamps in all our temples are throwing clearer 
and broader light than ever on that all-ensphereing "godli- 
ness" that is profitable for the life that is, and for the life 
that is to come. 



Lamps of the Temple 



THE POVERTY OF JESUS: A CHRISTMAS 
HOMILY TO THE RICH. 



HE poverty of Jesus made the exceptional priv- 



1 ileges of life more manifest. He showed that 
wealth and all that wealth brings are not necessary 
to human life. Must not the inference have been 
to all who had these things that they were special 
privileges, to be used under a special sense of re- 
sponsibility? It is not to be inferred because Jesus 
came in poverty that wealth is unnatural or wrong. 
Jesus lived in no house — sometimes he had no 
bread ; but this was not to teach that it is wicked to 
live in houses and to have plenteous tables, but that 
bread and houses must be accepted as God's gifts. 
The things he lacked, and we have so plentifully, 
are good things and not bad. The son of man was 
born without them that we might value them all 
the more, seeing them to be exceptional. We are 
taught that they are exceptional and the special 
gift of God, by the fact that the son of man was 
born without them. 

This is what Christmas has to say to you who are 
rich. Wealth is good and not bad. The life of 



Bishop Phillips Brooks. 




(9) 



IO 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



lives was destitute of it, but that which you possess 
is a blessing. Do not possess your wealth as if it 
was a thing to be ashamed of, or worthless, as if you 
must throw it into the sea and be rid of it in order 
to be good. That is why many rich men misuse 
their wealth, because they think that wealth is 
something that has not come from God, but has 
been wrung from their fellowmen, or perhaps teased 
from the devil. The books that men think they 
ought not to read, the plays and pictures that they 
think they ought not to see — whatever men indulge 
in that they think they have no right to— they mis- 
use. Learn that wealth, if honestly won, is a good 
thing. It is recorded as a privation in the life of 
Jesus that he lacked the things that wealth pro- 
duces. They cannot, then, be worthless. 

At the same time learn from the nativity of Jesus 
that your life is exceptional. You are never to 
make it the test of humanity. Never forget that 
the best of men was born utterly without it. Never 
think less of any man because he is destitute of it. 
Wealth is to be regarded, not so much as something 
lacking in him, but as something added to you. And 
if it is exceptional it must have some exceptional 
duty fastened to it. It must be that you hold it, 
in part at least, to be used in trust for other people. 

These are the truths you rich people ought to learn 
and teach your rich children out of the story of to- 
day. Show them the Saviour lying a poor child in 
the stable manger, and let them compare his condi- 
tion with the luxury in which they have been born 



THE POVERTY OF JESUS 



1 1 



and cradled. Say to them : " See how many good 
things you have, my children, but do not dare to 
despise those who have them not ; for if you do, 
you despise Jesus. And be sure that while these 
things can help express and educate your goodness, 
they can never make you good, for he who was 
perfectly good had none of them." 

For the poor, too, it means that the Lord came 
to the earth poor. It was a deprivation to which 
he submitted, submitted willingly, but still sub- 
mitted as to a deprivation. The poor, too, like the 
rich, must remember that in the tone in which this 
tale is told and in every word that he first speaks, 
there is nothing whatever of contempt of wealth. 
There is a constant sense of its limitations and dan- 
gers, but no contempt of wealth for its own self. 
His parents laid him in a manger, but it was dis- 
tinctly because there was no room for him in the 
inn. There is no -warrant for the poor man to be 
contemptuous about the wealth that is denied him 
or the people who possess it. There is not one 
shadow in the story or in the history that follows it, 
of that bitterness with which poverty has often 
looked on wealth. The spirit of the monastic vow 
of poverty or the communistic hate of property is 
totally absent from the story of the birth of Christ. 

Stand, with all your poverty, by the manger 
where our Lord was laid, and what is the voice that 
comes to you ? " Here is Christ, the power of God 
and the wisdom of God. Look at this room and 
this straw and all the tired faces of the cattle. You 



12 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



must not think that your being poor keeps you from 
being strong and wise and good. Here is inde- 
pendence and responsibility. Men have been pass- 
ing you by, as if you could do nothing for the world. 
They have turned to the rich men as if they alone 
could do great things for the world. But if the per- 
fect man was poor like this, this poverty cannot 
hinder you from any perfection. Rise up and shake 
off the contempt of men, as the sun shakes off the 
cloud and goes on in its serene career. If Jesus 
Christ saved the world, by a poverty poorer than 
you have ever known, the excuse of poverty cannot 
serve you. You can be poor where he was poor. 
You, by your poverty, can do something to finish in 
your poverty the salvation which he began in his." 

Does that seem like a mere ideal ? My answer is 
that, to some extent, it has come true already. 
There are men, and there are groups of men, in- 
ured by Christ to seek for truth and goodness and 
the soul's salvation, who have really learned that a 
man's life does not consist in the abundance of the 
things which he possesses. 

We can be ready, without any waiting, to take to 
ourselves all that the incarnation has to tell us. 
Let us go to-day to Bethlehem and see this strange 
thing which has come to pass. Above the manger 
where the Lord lay is written, " Though he was 
rich, yet for our sakes he became poor." Let the 
rich man read that, and then understand his wealth. 
Let him not despise other men for their lack of it, 
for Christ gave it up and was Christ still. Let him 



THIRSTING AFTER GOD 



13 



be ready to give it up the moment Christ shows 
him that he can be more Christ-like by giving it up. 

Let not the poor man complain of that which 
was his Lord's glory. Let him be poor for other 
men, as Jesus was. By the cradle of the Christ the 
rich and the poor may truly meet together, and the 
rich man lose his miserable contemptuousness and 
the poor man lose his miserable bitterness, as the 
divine child takes them both by the hand to lead 
them. 

May the blessings of the incarnation by poverty 
give themselves to all of us, rich and poor alike, on 
this Christmas day ! 

"THIRSTING AFTER GOD." 

Alex Maclaren, M.A., D.D. 

TN that arid tract which stretches along the west- 
* ern shore of the Dead Sea, and thence north- 
ward, David was twice during his adventurous life. 
Once during the Sauline persecution, once during 
Absalom's revolt. It cannot be the former of these 
which is referred to here, because the Psalmist was 
not then a king ; it must therefore be the latter. 

That was the darkest hour of his life. His 
favorite and good-for-nothing son was seeking to 
grasp his sceptre ; his familiar friends in whom 
he trusted had lifted up the heel against him. 
He knew that his own sin had come back to roost 
with him ; and so, with bleeding heart, with agon- 
ised conscience, with crushed spirit, he bowed him- 



14 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



self, and meekly and penitently accepted the chas- 
tisement. Therefore it was sweetened to him ; and 
this Psalm, with its passion of love and mystic rap- 
ture, is a monument for us of how his sorrows had 
brought him a closer union with God, as our sor- 
rows may do for us ; like some treasure washed to 
our feet by a stormy sea. 

Let us read the Psalm over this morning, and 
try to realise it as the utterance of a soul seeking 
after and finding God. I think the key to its ar- 
rangement will be found in the threefold recur- 
rence of a similar phrase. In the first verse I read 
"My soul thirsteth for Thee." In the fifth verse, 
" My soul shall be satisfied." In the eighth verse, 
4< My soul followeth hard after Thee." 

O God Thou art my God ; early' will I seek Thee ; my soul 
thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty 
land, where no water is ; 

To see Thy power and Thy glory, so as I have seen Thee in 
the sanctuary. 

Because Thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall 
praise Thee. 

Thus will I bless Thee while I live : I will lift up my hands 
in Thy name. 

My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness : and 
my mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips : 

When I remember Thee upon my bed, and meditate on Thee 
in the night watches. 

Because Thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of 
Thy wings will I rejoice.- 

My soul followeth hard after Thee : Thy right hand uphold - 
eth me. 

But those that seek after my soul, to destroy it, shall go 
into the lower parts of the earth. 



THIRSTING AFTER GOD 



15 



They shall fall by the sword : they shall be a portion for foxes. 

But the king shall rejoice in God ; every one that sweareth by 
Him shall glory : but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be 
stopped. (Psa. lxiii. 1-11.) 

Now, observe that this longing is not that of a 
man who has no possession ; rather is it the desire 
of a heart which is already in union, for a closer 
union ; rather is it the tightening of the grasp with 
which the man already holds His Father in Heaven. 
All begins with the utterance of a personal appro- 
priating faith. " O God ! Thou art my God ! " That 
is the beginning of all personal religion, when I am 
conscious of a personal relation with God ; when I 
feel that He and I possess each other by a mutual 
love ; when I put out my hand, and humbly but 
confidently claim my individual portion in the 
world-wide power and love. A Christian is he who 
says " He loved me, and gave Himself for me" We 
must individualise, and appropriate as our very own, 
the promises and the grace that belong to the 
whole world. " O God ! Thou art my God ! ' 

And then upon that there are built the earnest 
seeking. "Early," that is to say, "earnestly," "will 
I seek Thee," and the intensest longing: "My 
soul thirsteth for Thee : my flesh longeth for Thee 
in a dry and weary land where no water is." 

Notice the picturesque, poetic beauty of taking his 
surroundings as the emblem of his feelings. Nature 
seems to reflect his mood. He looks out on the 
stony, monotonous, burnt-up, barren country about 
him ; at the cracks in the soil gaping for the rain 



i6 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



which comes not ; and he sees the emblem of a 
heart yearning after God and not possessing Him. 
He and his men having been toiling wearied, across 
the " burning marl," looking in all the torrent-beds 
for some drop of water to cool their parched throats, 
and rinding none. And that seems to him like the 
search of a soul after a far-off God : " My soul 
thirsteth for Thee ... in a dry and thirsty 
land where no water is." 

And, then, notice what it is, or rather Who it is 
that the man longs for. " My soul thirsts for Thee." 
All souls do. Everybody is crying out for the liv- 
ing God, only the difference between us is that 
some of us know what it is that we want, and that 
some of us do not. Blessed are they who can say : 
" Thou art my God " ; and who can add : " My soul 
thirsteth for Thee," in Whom, and in Whom only, 
is the fountain at which we can all slake our thirst 
and be satisfied. 

Notice the intensity of the desire. Think of the 
picture that rises from these graphic words. Here 
is the caravan toiling through the desert, men's lips 
black with thirst, their parched tongues lolling 
from their mouths, a film comes over their glazing 
eyes, their steps totter, their heads throb, and far 
away yonder there is a stunted tree which tells of 
water near it. How they plunge their lips into the 
black mud when they come to it, and with what a 
fierce passion they satisfy their cravings. 

There is no such appetite as thirst. Is it the 
least like your desire after God ? Can anybody say 



THIRSTING AFTER GOD 



that these words of my text are an honest descrip- 
tion of the ordinary experience of you ordinary 
Christians? " My soul thirsteth for God;" and the 
longing has even touched his physical life. Is that 
or anything like it true, about you, brethren ? 
What sort of Christians aid we if it is not? 

And notice when it was that this man thus 
longed. In the midst of his sorrow. Even then 
the thing that he wanted most was not restoration 
to Jerusalem, or the defeat of his enemies, but union 
with God. Oh ! that is a test of faith, one which 
very little of our faith could stand, that even when 
we are ringed about by calamities that seem to 
crush us, what we long for most is not the removal 
of the sorrow, but the presence of our Father. Good 
men are driven to God by the stress of tempests, 
and ordinary and bad men are generally driven away 
from Him. What does your sorrow do for you, 
friend? Does it make you writhe in impatience, 
does it make you murmur sullenly against His im- 
position of it, or does it make you feel that now in 
the stress and agony there is nothing that you can 
grasp and hold to but Him, and Him alone ? And 
so in the hour of darkness and need is my prayer, 
in its deepest meaning, not " Take away Thy heavy 
hand from me," but " Give me more of Thyself, 
that Thy hand may thereby be lightened"? So 
much then for the longing that is here. 

Still looking at this first portion of our Psalm, of 
which that desire, intense and ardent, is the keynote, 
I notice that this longing, though it be struck out 

Lamps of the Temple — 2 



i8 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



by sorrow, is not forced upon him for the first time 
by sorrow. The second verse of our Psalm might be 
more accurately rendered with the transposition of 
the two clauses, somewhat in this fashion: "So have 
I gazed upon Thee in the sanctuary, to see Thy power 
and Thy glory." That is to say, in like manner as 
in the sorrows and in the wilderness he is conscious 
of this desire after God, so amidst the sanctities of the 
Tabernacle and the joyful services and sacrifices 
of its ritual worship, does he remember that he 
looked through the forms to Him that shone in 
them, and in them beheld His power and His glory. 
So the longing that springs in his heart is an old 
longing. He remembers past times when it has been 
with him, and his days of sorrow are not the first 
days in which he has been driven to say : " Come 
Thou and help me." He can remember glad, peace- 
ful moments of communion, and these are homo- 
geneous and of a piece with his religious contempla- 
tions in his hours of sorrow. 

Ah! brother ! that life is but a poor, fragmentary 
one which seeks God by fits and starts ; and that 
seeking after God is but a half-hearted and partial 
one which is only experienced in the moments of 
pain and grief. It is well to cry for Him in the 
wilderness, but it is not well that it should only be 
the wilderness in which we cry for Him. It is well 
when darkness and disaster teach us our need of 
Him ; but it is not well when we require the dark- 
ness and the disaster to teach us our need. 

And, on the other hand, that is but a poor, frag- 



THIRSTING AFTER GOD 



I 9 



mentary life, and that religion is but a very incom- 
plete and insincere one which is more productive of 
raptures in the sanctuary than of seeking after God 
in the wilderness. There are plenty of Christian 
people who have a great deal more consciousness of 
God's presence in the idle emotions of a church or a 
chapel than in the strenuous efforts of daily life. 
Both things separately are maimed and miserable ; 
and both must be put. together — the communion in 
the sanctuary and the communion in the wilderness ; 
seeking after Him in the sanctities of worship, and 
seeking after Him in the prose of daily life ; if ever 
the worship of the sanctuary or the prose of daily 
life are to be brightened with His presence. 

Then, still further, this longing is animated by a 
profound consciousness that God is best. " Because 
Thy loving-kindness is better than life." 

Life is good mainly as the field upon which God's 
loving-kindness may be manifested and grasped. I t is 
like the white sheet on which the beam of light is 
thrown, worth nothing in itself, worth everything as 
the medium for the manifestation of that lustrous 
light. It is like those gallery windows, only a poor 
bit of glass till the sunshine gleams behind it, and 
then it flashes up into rubies and purples and gold. 
Life is best when through life there filters or flashes 
on us the brightness of the loving-kindness of the 
Lord. 

And all real religion includes in it a calm, deliber- 
ate, fixed preference of God to life itself. Does 
your religion do that? Can you say, "It were wise 



20 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



and it were blessed to die, to get more of God into 
my soul?" If not, our longing, which is the very 
language of the spirit in our hearts, has to be inten- 
sified much ere it reaches its fitting height. 

And then, still further, this longing is accompanied 
with a firm resolve of continuance. " Thus will I 
bless Thee while I live." " Thus " — as I am doing now 
in the midst of my longing—" I will lift up my 
hands in Thy name." So much, then, for the first 
portion of the Psalm. 

Now turn for a moment to the second portion, 
which is included in the next three verses, where we 
have the longing soul satisfied. " My soul shall be 
satisfied as with marrow and fatness." 

Notice, now, how very beautiful that immediate 
turn in the Psalmist's feelings is. The fruition of 
God is contemporaneous with the desire after God. 
The one moment, "My soul thirsteth ;" the next 
moment, " My soul is satisfied." As in the wilder- 
ness when the rain comes down, and in a couple of 
days what was baked earth is flowery meadow, 
and all the torrent-beds where the white stones 
glistened ghastly in the heat are foaming with rush- 
ing water, and fringed with budding willows ; so in 
the instant in which a heart turns with true desire 
to God, in that instant does God draw near to it. 
The Arctic spring comes with one stride ; to-day 
snow, to-morrow flowers. There is no time needed 
to work this telegraph ; while we speak He hears ; 
before we call He answers. We have to wait for 
many of His gifts, never for Himself. We have to 



THIRSTING AFTER GOD 



21 



wait sometimes when by our own faults we post- 
pone the coming of the blessings that we have asked. 
If we are thinking more about Absalom and Achi- 
tophel than about God ; more about our sorrows and 
our troubles than about Himself ; if we are busy 
with other things ; if having asked we do not look 
up and expect ; if we shut the doors of our hearts 
as soon as our prayer is offered, or languidly stroll 
away from the place of prayer ere the blessing has 
fluttered down upon our souls, of course we do not 
get it. But God is always waiting to bestow, and 
all that we need to do is to open the sluices and the 
great ocean flows in, or as much of it as our hearts can 
hold. " My soul thirsteth " is the experience of the 
one moment, and ere the clock has ticked again 
"my soul shall be satisfied." 

Then notice, the soul that possesses God is fed 
full. The emblem here, of course, is of a joyful 
feast, possibly of a sacrificial one; but the fact is 
that whoever has got a living hold of God and a 
little bit of God lovingly embedded in his heart, has 
got as much as he wants ; that between God and 
him there is such a correspondence as that He is 
the absolute and all-sufficient good. If I may so 
say, every hollow in my nature answers to a protu- 
berance in His,. and when you put the two together 
the little heart is filled by the great heart that has 
come to it. We are at rest when we have God, and 
to long for Him is to insure the possession of an 
absolute and all-sufificient good. 

And then we have here, still further, the satisfied 



22 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



soul breaking into the music of praise. " My mouth 
shall praise Thee with joyful lips when I remember 
Thee upon my bed, and meditate on Thee in the 
night-watches." There is a reference, no doubt, 
there, to the little camp in the wilderness, where 
David and his men, unguarded save by God, laid 
themselves down to sleep beneath the Syrian sky 
with all its stars, and where the leader, no doubt, 
often awoke in the night, with pricked-up ears list- 
ening for the sounds of the approaching enemy. 
And even then into his heart there steals the 
thought of his great Protector ; and as he says in 
another of the Psalms dating from this period. " I 
will lay me down in peace and sleep, because Thou 
makest me to dwell, though solitary, in safety." 
The heart that feeds upon God is secure, and breaks 
into songs in the night, and music of praise. That 
feast has always minstrels at it. The spontaneous 
utterance of a heart feeding on God is thankfulness 
and music of praise, which is as natural as smiles 
when we are glad, or as tears when we mourn. 

And then, still further, this satisfaction leads on 
to an absolute security. " Because Thou hast been 
my help, therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will 
I rejoice." Such a past and such a present can only 
have one kind of future as their consequence — a 
future in which the seeking soul nestling itself 
beneath the great wings outstretched shall crowd 
close to the Father's heart, and be guarded by His 
love. If we hold fellowship with Him He protects 
us. As another Psalm says, using a similar meta- 



JEWISH CONCEPTION OF GOD 



23 



phor: " He that dwelleth in the secret place of the 
Most High shall abide under the shadow of the 
Almighty." Communion with God means protec- 
tion by God. 

The part of the seeking soul is the certain pledge 
of its future. The uncertainties of the dim to-mor- 
row, in so far as earth is concerned, are so many 
that we can never say, "To-morrow shall be as this 
day." And in regard of all other sources of blessing, 
the dearest and the purest, we have all to feel, with 
sinking, sickening hearts, that the longer we have 
had them the nearer comes the day of their certain 
loss. But about Him we can say, " Because Thou 
hast been my Helper, therefore in the shadow of 
Thy wings will I rejoice." And in union with Him 
we can look out over all the dim sea that stretches 
before us, and though we know not what storms may 
vex its surface, or whither its currents may carry 
us, we can say, " Thou wilt be with Me, and in Thee 
I shall have peace." 



THE JEWISH CONCEPTION OF GOD. 



HERE is a certain class of passages like this in 



the Old Testament which I always read aloud 
in a large assemblage with a certain anxiety. I 
feel the same anxiety in proposing certain hymns 
for singing. They are the passages of old Scripture 
or of modern verse which give to God the form or 
senses of our human life. I am haunted by a fear 



E. E. Hale, D.D. 




24 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



that some one or more persons in the congregation 
may be annoyed, even disgusted, by such phrases 
as, say, " The Lord went before them," or " Thus 
said the Lord," " The Lord called him out of the 
tabernacle," or even such evidently poetical phrases 
as " The Lord took him in the hollow of his hand." 

The God of Christians is the Universal Spirit 
who fills all space. He is not before, as he is not 
behind. He does not go here : he does not stay 
there. It is for this reason that a sort of anxiety 
haunts me when I use the purely poetical language 
of old times, or of our times. — which even in 
words seems to limit his omnipresence or his omnip- 
otence. I have a fear lest some who are in the 
assembly may not like to use such words as I do as 
simply human expressions of Infinite power. 

It is interesting, indeed, to see how carefully, how 
ingeniously the Jews freed themselves from lan- 
guage as from imagery, which supposed that any one 
could see God. ''Thou shalt not make for thyself 
any graven image." This was the order of a law- 
giver who had brought them from that Egypt where 
were avenues of carved sphinxes and avenues of co- 
lossal statues of gods and goddesses. — statues even 
of the bull Apis and the dog Anubis and of every 
other beast in the calendar of natural history. 
Moses had seen what that came out upon. And so 
he began with " Thou shalt make no graven images." 
What follows is a scorn of idolatry : — of any images 
you can see. And so Jehovah — the Jews' God — is 
always spoken of as in thick darkness. Clouds are 



JEWISH CONCEPTION OF GOD 



25 



round about him. The Holy of Holies in the taber- 
nacle and the temples are without windows, and 
when the high priest enters once a year there is 
nothing to be looked upon. God cannot be seen. 
That may be counted as the central word of the 
ritual of the religion of Moses. 

But this does not imply that their God is inac- 
cessible or indifferent. That notion of a God too 
far off to care for men— so great as even to be 
ignorant of their existence — was in philosophies of 
which Moses knew and which Jews often heard of. 
But their religion scorned such separation. God 
could deal with them — they could deal with him. 
They could not see him. No ! He was hid in cloud 
or was invisible. But they had his commands. 
Rejecting all symbolism of the eye or of sight, they 
were not afraid of the other symbolism which takes 
its figures from the voice and the ear. When Moses 
wanted to say that God instructed him, inspired him, 
or improved him, he said squarely that the Lord 
taught him. When he came back from the moun- 
tain bringing in his memory the detail of the admin- 
istration of the ritual, he said the pattern has been 
shown him from which he wrought and directed 
their endeavor. And so, of this direction or that, 
which he knew came from the Power that works 
for righteousness, he had no scruple in saying, — 

"The Lord said this to me," or "The Lord said 
that to me." He would have shrunk before saying 
he had looked upon the form of God. But he was 
quite sure that no man would misunderstand him 



26 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



when he said he had listened to the voice of God, 
that he had heard his word. It was reserved to 
later superstition to suppose that the drum of his 
ear actually vibrated, or that words pronounced 
in Hebrew which could have been written by a 
phonograph, broke the still silence of lonely Horeb. 
The Jewish race, he thought, was in no such danger. 
It was not thunder which spoke. It was not earth- 
quake which spoke. As with Elijah, so was it with 
all of them. By one of the exquisite paradoxes of 
which their language is full, the voice is a still voice: 
that is, it is a voice which cannot be heard. " There 
is no voice nor sound ; yet the instruction goes forth 
to all the world." And because Moses and these 
other prophets were sure that they knew the wish 
of God — had received the definite word — they did 
not hesitate to say " The Lord spoke to me." So 
when they chose to describe the divine wisdom by 
which their chief led their caravan, they said " The 
Lord was with him." He was with the column of 
smoke by which the leader directed Israel's march 
by day. And when at night that leader returned to 
the rear of the encampment, Jehovah was still with 
his blazing camp-fire. 

They had here an advantage in language. The 
race of men to which the Jews belong have always 
used languages which readily adopted statements as 
poetical as these. David could sing, ''The Lord is 
my rock, the Lord is my fortress, the Lord is my 
strong town." And neither he nor his hearers 
thought of Jehovah as looking like a rock, or as 



JEWISH CONCEPTION OF GOD 



27 



fixed like a fortress, or as if he could be besieged as 
a town. And from Moses to Isaiah, they all could 
say, " Thus saith the Lord," and no man supposed 
that the nouns and the verbs had passed in that 
form from the lips of God, or thought that leader 
or prophet said so. You have only to read the 
" Arabian Nights," or to try the songs of Anton, 
the Arabian poet of perhaps a later time, or even 
follow any modern traveler who talks with the 
modern Bedouin, to see that, with them, language 
regarding spiritual agency is more free than with us, 
and that the simplest person has no thought of im- 
posing on such phrases a rigid construction, what I 
may fairly call a mechanical meaning. This is the 
good fortune of what men call the Semitic race, 
whose home is around the Arabian peninsula. 

But we belong to another race, of another lan- 
guage and a harder habit. East Indians, Persians, 
Greeks, Romans, Germans and English all belong to 
what people like to call the great Aryan race. 

It is the race of organized forces, the race of-cities 
and armies and systems of empire. It is the race of 
mechanical inventions. Its conquering power was 
felt even when the earlier legends of the book of 
Genesis were written, when it is said of this race — 
the race of Japhet — that God shall enlarge Japhet 
and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem to whose 
family Israel belongs. Powerful and strong, a race 
of fact more than of fancy, it frames the institutions, 
it builds the cities, it directs the trade of the world. 
But the other race, the race of Shem, the race of 



28 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



fancy rather than fact, the race of tents rather than 
houses, the race which cares for ideas rather than 
forms, has repaid the Aryan races by such gifts as 
these laws called the laws of Moses, and the Hebrew 
scriptures. It has given it the ideas around which 
its facts shall be arrayed. It supplies the apostles 
of all its progressive religions. And at this day, as 
Dr. Martineau has said, " The Hebrew prophet finds 
himself in the presence of the English tradesman, 
and is better understood when he speaks of Jordan, 
than the poet at home, when he describes the Greta 
or the Yarrow, so completely has the devout and 
fervid East been opened to the wonder and affec- 
tion of the severer West." The great miracle of 
history, indeed, is in the interpenetration into each 
of the great races of mankind of the best and 
noblest qualities of the other. The great struggle is 
to make men know that they are of one blood. The 
great victory is won when the Divinity of their com- 
mon nature asserts itself. To see General Arm- 
strong and his devout and devoted teachers inspir- 
ing with the Divine life, now a Dacotan boy, and 
now a Pimo girl, to see helping in the work this 
negro from a plantation and that one from a barber- 
shop, whose currents of life two generations back 
flowed under the suns of Dahomey or of Guinea ; 
this is to see the fulfilment of the Christian promise. 
Men who are of one family, children of one God, 
shall come to know their oneness. They shall live 
as those are of one blood. " They shall be made 
perfect in one." 



THE MORALLY SUBLIME 



2 9 



In the course of this harmonizing of races it hap- 
pens that we here are often reading Hebrew Scrip- 
tures in this church, and often singing Hebrew 
hymns and songs. I hope I need not say that I 
would die before I uttered one of these ancient 
words if I thought that it even implied a small or 
restricted notion of the infinite God, if it repre- 
sented him as a local god or as a giant man. It is 
precisely because they do not really imply such a 
notion that they have their place in the literature 
of the world. 



THE MORALLY SUBLIME. 

Dr. Wayland. 

PHILOSOPHERS have speculated muchconcern- 
A ing a process of sensation, which has commonly 
been denominated the emotion of sublimity. Aware 
that? like any other simple feeling, it must be incap- 
able of definition, they have seldom attempted to 
define it : but, content with remarking the occasions 
on which it is excited, have told us that it arises in 
general from the contemplations of whatever is vast 
in nature, splendid in intellect, or lofty in morals ; 
or, to express the same idea somewhat varied, in 
the language of a critic of antiquity, " That alone 
is truly sublime, of which the conception is vast, the 
effect irresistible, and the remembrance scarcely, if 
ever, to be erased." 

But, although philosophers alone have written 
about this emotion, they are far from being the only 



3Q 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



men who had felt it. The untutored peasant, when 
he has seen the autumnal tempest collecting between 
the hills, and, as it advanced, enveloping in misty 
obscurity village and hamlet, forest and meadow, 
has tasted the sublime in all its reality ; and whilst 
the thunder has rolled and the lightning flashed 
around him has exulted in the view of Nature mov- 
ing forth in her majesty. The untaught sailor-boy, 
listlessly hearkening to the idle ripple of the moonlight 
wave, when on a sudden he has thought upon the 
unfathomable abyss beneath him, and the wide waste 
of waters around him, and the infinite expanse above 
him, has enjoyed to the full the emotion of sublim- 
ity, whilst his inmost soul has trembled at the vast- 
ness of its own conceptions. But why need I mul- 
tiply illustrations from nature? Who does not 
recollect the emotion he has felt while surveying 
aught in the material world, of terror or of vastness ? 

And this sensation is not produced by grandeur 
in material objects alone. It is also excited on most 
of those occasions in which we see man tasking to 
the uttermost the energies of his intellectual or moral 
nature. Through the long lapse of centuries, who, 
without emotion, has read of Leonidas and his three 
hundred throwing themselves as a barrier before 
the myriads of Xerxes, and contending unto death 
for the liberties of Greece ? 

But we need not turn to classic story to find all that 
is great in human action ; we find it in our own 
times and in the history of our own country. Who 
is there of us that, even in the nursery, has not felt 



THE MORALLY SUBLIME 



31 



his spirit stir within him, when, with child-like won- 
der, he has listened to the story of Washington ? 
And although the terms of the narrative were 
scarcely intelligible, yet the young soul kindled at 
the thought of one man's working out the deliv- 
ery of a nation. And as our understanding, strength- 
ened by age, was at last able to grasp the detail of 
this transaction, we saw that our infantile concep- 
tions had fallen far short of its grandeur. Oh ! if an 
American citizen ever exults in the contemplation 
of all that is sublime in human enterprise, it is when, 
bringing to mind the men who first conceived the 
idea of this nation's independence, he beholds them 
estimating the power of her oppressor, the resources 
of her citizens, deciding in their collected might that 
this nation should be free, and, through the long 
years of trial that ensued, never blenching from their 
purpose, but freely redeeming the pledge they had 
given, to consecrate to it " their lives, their fortunes, 
and their sacred honor." 

Patriots have toiled, and, in their country's cause, 
Bled nobly, and their deeds, as they deserve, 
Receive proud recompense. We give in charge 
Their names to the sweet lyre. The historic Muse, 
Proud of her treasure, marches with it down 
To latest times : and Sculpture in her turn 
Gives bond, in stone and ever-during brass, 
To guard them, and immortalize her trust. 

It is not in the field of patriotism alone that deeds 
have been achieved, to which history has awarded 
the palm of moral sublimity. There have lived 
men, in whom the name of patriot has been merged 



32 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



in that of philanthropist ; who, looking with an eye 
of compassion over the face of the earth, have felt 
for the miseries of our race, and have put forth their 
calm might to wipe off one blot from the marred 
and stained escutcheon of human nature, to .strike 
off one form of suffering from the catalogue of 
human woe. Such a man was Howard. Surveying 
our world like a spirit of the blessed, he beheld the 
misery of the captive — he heard the groaning of the 
prisoner. His determination was fixed. He resolved 
single-handed, to gauge and to measure one form 
of unpitied, unheeded wretchedness, and, bringing it 
out to the sunshine of public observation, to work 
its utter extermination. And he well knew what 
this undertaking would cost him. He knew what he 
had to hazard from the infection of dungeons, to 
endure from the fatigues of inhospitable travel, and 
to brook from the insolence of legalized oppression. 
He knew that he was devoting himself to the 
altar of philanthropy, and he willingly devoted him- 
self. He had marked out his destiny, and he hasted 
forward to its accomplishment, with an intensity 
"which the nature of the human mind forbade to be 
more, and the character of the individual forbade to 
be less." Thus he commenced a new era in the his- 
tory of benevolence. And hence, the name of How- 
ard will be associated with all that is sublime in 
mercy, until the final consummation of all things. 

Such a man is Qarkson, who, looking abroad, be- 
held the miseries of Africa, and looking at home, saw 
his country stained with her blood. We have seen 



BACK TO JESUS. 



33 



him, laying aside the vestments of the priesthood, 
consecrate himself to the holy purpose of rescuing 
a continent from rapine and murder, and of ^rasing 
this one sin from the book of his nation's iniquities. 
We have seen him and his fellow-philanthropists, 
for twenty years, never waver from their purpose. 
We have seen them persevere amidst neglect and 
obloquy, and contempt, and persecution, until, the 
cry of the oppressed having roused the sensibilities 
of the nation, the "Island Empress " rose in her 
might, and said to this foul traffic in human flesh, 
"Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther." 



"BACK TO JESUS." 

John Clifford, M.A., L.L.B. 

" O ACK to Jesus," saith the Spirit to the Churches ; 

to Jesus of Bethlehem and Nazareth, Caper- 
naum and Jerusalem. Back to the Boy, nourished 
and inspired to high aims by His loving mother. 
Back to the Youth, now drinking in the golden light 
that falls on the Nazarene hills, now wistfully search- 
ing the mysteries of the clear-shining stars ; but 
oftenest rejoicing in the words of psalmists and 
prophets and the strong assurance of the loving Will 
of the Eternal Father. Back to the common Work- 
ing Man, the Carpenter of Nazareth, calmly endur- 
ing the long discipline of silence for the sake of far- 
off issues to the world. Back to Jesus, as He was 
to the people who lived next door to Him in Naz- 
areth, as He answered with startling wisdom the 

Lamps of the Temple — 3 



34 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



free and familiar questions of the gossips at street 
corners, and then in a public ministry, made brief 
by death, taught and wrought so effectively as to 
make Him the Redeemer of the world. 

Alas ! how little we really know of Him in His 
habit as He thought, and felt, and lived ; of His 
"deep things ; " for it is little, indeed, that we know 
of the deep things of our own life — the life that of 
all others is the nearest to us ! So little is told, so 
much is hidden from our eyes. What questions we 
would like to ask His mother about His boyhood ! 
If only it were possible to " interview " the " Master " 
of the Nazarene Synagogue as to the " gossip " of 
the place about Him ; what His playmates thought 
of Him ; what they heard Him say ; what they saw 
Him do ! How we should rejoice to learn of His 
skill in the use of the plane and saw ! What revela- 
tions Peter could make concerning His methods in 
His school ! If only we knew the Jews of Galilee 
through and through, and his brother of Jerusalem, 
so that we could see into the working of their 
minds, that would aid us ; but it is difficult to make 
sure of them ; how much more difficult to be sure of 
the workings of the mind of that Chiefest Jew of 
them all ! 

And as if the difficulties were not serious enough, 
the Churches have hidden the real Jesus of the 
Gospels behind the drapery of their words. The 
" Cross " does not suggest a gallows ; the gifts of 
women to the wandering Preacher do not force us 
to think of a religious reformer living on charity. 



MESSAGE OF A MILLIONAIRE 



35 



" Friend of publicans and sinners" is a phrase whose 
color is of so neutral a tent that it does not image 
the Saviour of the street-harlot and the thief. " Back 
to Jesus," to Jesus Himself, saith the Spirit to the 
Churches. " For consider " the loud-mouthed con- 
tradiction and blatant opposition He endured. 
There is help in it for the crusaders who have to do 
hard work to-day and suffer loss in fighting estab- 
lished tyrannies and abolishing hoary wrongs ! 



THE MESSAGE OF A MILLIONAIRE TO 



MESSAGE from an absent friend dwelling in a 



distant land is always of interest ; and a fare- 
well communication from the dying is ever regarded 
as sacred ; but a letter or speech addressed to us out 
of the hereafter would doubtless startle and might 
produce a deep, though probably only a transitory, 
impression. Something like this conviction appears 
to have governed the thought of dead Dives in hades, 
and so he prays for an ambassador extraordinary to 
bear an extraordinary warning to his surviving rela- 
tives. He is told that in the long run this pallid 
representative would do no good ; that the amaze- 
ment past, indifference would probably succeed ; and 
that adequate provisions had already been made for 
the instruction and the admonition of the living. 
But though his wishes' were not complied with in 
the manner he desired, they were executed in 



MILLIONAIRES. 



George C. Lorsman, L.L.D. 




36 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



another way : Jesus himself became the bearer of 
his message, not only to the brothers who had inher- 
ited his wealth, but to all other millionaires. And a 
very weighty and significant message it seems to be. 
We have in our times many alleged post-mortem 
utterances ; but they are characterized by triviality 
and sterility. No good reason can be assigned for 
ghostly communications such as are claimed to be 
real in our day. They never rise above the knowledge 
or the moral worth of the medium, and they have 
never added to the world's stock of intelligence or 
of virtue. But in the text w T e have one of a very 
different character. Whatever motive may have 
prompted it, assuredly it is on its surface marked by 
generous thoughtfulness, humanity, solicitude and 
sympathy. Dives would keep his brothers from 
coming to the place of torment where he had been 
doomed to suffer; he would have them amend their 
ways, and not live on the earth as he had lived. 
This anxiety is not without pathos, and such testi- 
mony as this, however it may reach us, is not with- 
out value. 

Recently an orthodox brother has taken pains to 
point out the tolerableness of hell, to quench its 
fires, to mitigate its pangs, and prove that it has 
been a fearfully misrepresented locality. In effect 
he has shown, or tried to show, that it is not a very 
terrible place after all — not much worse than Chi- 
cago or New York or Paris. To me such special 
pleadings defeat themselves. By no such tricks of 
rhetoric can we reconcile humanity to the idea of 



MESSAGE OF A MILLIONAIRE 



37 



perdition. There is a real hell or there is not. If 
there is, no repudiation of literal fires will render it 
one jot more attractive. If it is hell — the opposite 
of heaven — it will be found to be unendurable, even 
if all descriptions of it in the Bible are figura- 
tive; for figurative language is the mind's struggle 
to express a truth too high, too great or two awful 
for other words to define. How vain then all semi- 
apologies and halting explanations. If there is a 
state or punishment after death, let us say so ; if 
there is none revealed to us in the Bible, let us say 
so ; but if there is let us see to it that we do not 
refine away its entire significance. Unquestionably 
the parable from which the text is taken is sadly 
favorable to the doctrine of posthumous retribution. 
I do not claim that it is decisive regarding the final 
restoration or annihilation of the wicked questions 
now agitating Christendom, and questions which I 
candidly say I am not prepared to speak positively 
on at present. But with this concession, it clearly 
teaches that after death there is wrath on every soul 
that doeth evil, not only on the poor but on the rich 
as well. If this is not the primary and fundamental 
truth on which the parable is built then it has no 
meaning, and the dead millionaire's message has no 
special interest or force. 

The death of a wealthy man, like one of the Van- 
derbilts, Astors, Goulds, Drexels or Rothschilds, 
naturally awakens many reflections. The first and 
perhaps the principal one, though taking various 
forms, being the powerlessness of money to resist 



38 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



decay. It is reported of Cardinal Winchester, who 
played an unenviable part in the murder of Jean 
Darce, that when dying he said : "Why should I 
die having so much riches ? Fie ! will not death be 
hindered, nor will money do nothing ?" Bulwer 
Lytton presents another Cardinal — Mazarin — walk- 
ing feebly through his collections of art and among 
his treasures, and mourning that soon he must say 
adieu to them forever : 

And slowly as he tottered by, the old man, unresigned, 
Sighed forth, "And must I die ! and leave this pleasant world 
behind, 

My power, my state, my wealth, my pomp, my galleries and my 
halls ?" 

Still while he sigh'd, the eternal art smiled on him from the 
walls. 

And at this moment the resources of royalty and 
the coffers of Germany are vainly seeking to un- 
loose the grip of death from the throat of an Em- 
peror. Ah me ! " Vanity of vanity, all is vanity;" yea, 
even the hard cash for whose possession so many 
sin. When the iron hand relaxes its hold on accum- 
ulated thousands, melancholy interest attaches to 
the biography of their owner and to the views he 
took of his own career now that it is over. This 
may sometimes be gathered from his last will and 
testament. Frequently we find in such documents 
large bequests to religion and philanthropy, indicat- 
ing that the testator had not taken sufficient care of 
these things when living, or such expressions of re- 
gret or of advice to his heirs as denote that he is not 



MESSAGE OF A MILLIONAIRE 



39 



satisfied with the conduct and results of his career. 
But in the case of Dives we are not left to infer 
from indistinct intimations his own estimate of the 
management of his earthly existence ; but it is made 
painfully clear in the terms of spirit and his mes- 
sage. This message I would study in the light of 
what is recorded of this man in the parable before 
us ; not because I have an audience of millionaires, 
but because some of you may be millionaires, and 
because in advance of extensive accumulations, and 
whether you accumulate or not it is well to know 
something of the responsibilities and opportunities 
of affluence. 

The dead millionaire would have his brothers turn 
from selfishness and inhumanity. Unquestionably 
he had himself been absorbed in his own comfort 
and enjoyment, and had bestowed no thought on 
the beggar at his gate. Some commentators even 
see in his desire that his brethren should not come 
to him an element of meanness. Their presence, 
with their rebukes, would only add to the intolera- 
bleness of his own lot. It has occurred to me that 
even here we have an instance of class-bias. He 
would prevent, if possible, other persons of his qual- 
ity from coming to his very plebian wretchedness. 
He feels for the rich, not for the poor ; and even 
goes so far as to expect Lazarus to wait on him in 
perdition. But be this as it may, Dives on earth 
was eminently selfish and unmindful of others. 
Count Tolstoi, in one of his many books, has an ad- 
mirable summary of conditions of individual happi- 



40 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



ness which the possession of great wealth jeopardizes. 
They are worthy of attention in this connection as 
they show how selfishness overreaches itself. The 
millionaire anxious to enjoy himself buys objects of 
art, secludes himself in a palace, travels in carriages 
with drawn blinds, and thus shuts out nature. But 
many of our sweetest moments come from commun- 
ion with the works of the Almighty, and no sculpture 
nor canvas can yield the delight that arises from 
mountain chain or grassy field or silver mere. An- 
other source of real pleasure is labor. Not, of course, 
the hard monotonous toils of mines or street cars, 
but that which without being excessive, exercises 
our faculties and maintains our strength. The mill- 
ionaire very likely will hail his relief from what he 
may term his drudgery, and rest his hands .with sat- 
isfaction. Selfishness is gratified ; but in a little 
while he suffers from nervousness, ennui, dyspepsia, 
and what not. Then unusual affluence fills the 
home with servants, with maids and grooms, or with 
hosts of thankless guests, and domesticity is at an end. 
Thus another source of happiness is impaired. And 
with it generally goes free communion with men. 
Doubts occur, and suspicions of friendship are engend- 
ered. The miserable rich man lives more and more to 
himself, and becomes more and more wretched. Self- 
ishness is the peril attending remarkable prosperity, 
and this in turn leads to courses which beget misery. 
Even Dives has something besides good things in 
this life and his message seems to be the fruit of his 
own bitter disappointment. Concerned so much 



MESSAGE OF A MILLIONAIRE 



41 



with self, how natural that he should have been in- 
different to Lazarus. I wish you to note that he is 
not accused of responsibility for the beggar's state. 
It is not intimated that he had ever cheated him, 
tricked him, outwitted and despoiled him. He had 
not taken him into partnership and then betrayed 
him, neither had he cornered him on the board of 
trade, nor destroyed his business by persistently 
underselling him. Had he done these things he 
would have deserved greater condemnation. He 
had only failed to hear the cry of the poor, and to 
take an interest in his cause. There are, doubtless, 
millionaires in our day who are less blameless than 
Dives. Some have piled up their estates through 
fraud and positive robbery. But the number in my 
opinion is, relatively speaking, small, and I shall not 
refer to them particularly now. Their ill-gotten 
gains will bring their own retribution. The crying 
sin of the notable rich is not dishonesty; it is. cold- 
blooded disregard for others. Again discrimination 
is needed. The affluence of our times are not al- 
ways ungenerous to the indigent. They do not 
begrudge an alms, and many of them are not averse 
to liberal donations for the poor as long as they 
themselves are not bothered. Immense sums are 
bestowed annually on the poor, and yet poverty is 
undiminished. Perhaps more ought to be done in 
this line, only with more system and wisdom. But 
the neglect of which I specially complain is the un- 
concern for the condition of the millions which dis- 
graces so many successful men, and the failure to 



42 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



take into consideration the effect of their plans and 
enterprises on the prosperity of the masses, and their 
undisguised indifference to their welfare. For in- 
stance, the rich men and women of Chicago know 
the pernicious effects of open theaters, open saloons 
and open dance halls on Sunday, and they could 
close them if they would only determine to do so. 
Let our millionaires hold a meeting and decide that 
Sunday work shall be reduced to the minimum as 
far as they can control it, and that they would give 
liberty on that day to thousands in their own em- 
ploy ; and let them encourage the barbers Jn their 
efforts to close their shops, and let them use their 
great influence with the city authorities to shut up 
places of evil resort. As the case stands now it is a 
controversy with the poor and the clergy on one side, 
and the mercenary classes, backed in no small de- 
gree by the press, on the other. The millionaires, 
with but few exceptions, stand aloof. Their attitude 
is indefensible. Take another illustration. It is 
well known that child-labor is a curse to a nation, 
and that neglected childhood is the source of crimes, 
vice and misery. Debate on this proposition is out 
of place ; for it is a truism. Yet, wherever one turns 
we find employers thronging their shops with chil- 
dren, as they can hire them cheaper, and their in- 
creased gains are made out of the sacrifice of morals 
and bodily strength. By such a course the labor- 
market is over-crowded, and discontent is fomented. 
If it shall be said that the margin of profits is small 
anyway, I answer it will yet be smaller, for this sui- 



MESSAGE OF A MILLIONAIRE 



43 



cidal policy diminishes the purchasing power of the 
people, and must ultimately impair their producing 
power. The Knights of Labor clamor for a change, 
the preachers also ; social economists know 
they are right, but the millionaires are indif- 
ferent. It has been argued recently that the 
Standard Oil Company is a public benefactor as it 
has reduced the price of oil — light and fuel — to the 
people. Doubtless something, perhaps much, may 
be said on that side of the question. But let us 
look at it from another point of view, or rather at, 
as we now euphoniously term them, " trusts " in 
general. They abate competition and promise to 
end it. Well ! But the parties who manage them be- 
come enormously wealthy ; and all unconsciously they 
are educating the people toward State Socialism. 
If oil, which is a natural product, and gas, which, as 
well as water, is now a necessity, and if coal and 
other commodities can be developed and put on the 
market at exceedingly low rates, without competition, 
and yet add untold millions to the coffers of those 
who manage these interests, then competition is not 
necessary, all these advantages can inure without it, 
and may just as well be secured by boards 
appointed by the State as well as by private corpora- 
tions, and the people at large share in the amazing pro- 
fits. I utter this note of warning. The Socialists are 
gaining from capitalists more than they lost by An- 
archists. We shall blunder along in our insane dis- 
regard of others until we confront a grave national 
peril. Heedless of where we are going, unless we 



44 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



pause to think, we shall bring up on the rocks of 
social convulsion. These are some of the examples, 
and only a few of them, of the many ways selfish- 
ness manifests its disregard of others and grows into 
inhumanity. 



HE old Book says, 1 The Lord gave, and the 



Lord hath taken away." I would mend it by 
saying, the Lord giveth,'giveth, giveth, He takes away 
a form, He gives a spirit ; He takes away the pres- 
ence, and gives a memory and a hope ; He takes 
away a friend, and gives an angel ; He takes away 
the support of an earthly home, and gives the 
pledge of a heavenly one beyond it ; He takes away 
the objects of time, and gives eternity ; He takes 
away the uses of the material and of the fleshly, 
and gives the great hereafter of blessed life ; He 
takes away one who walks by our side, He gives us 
a spirit that is with us here, everywhere and every 
day, that never leaves the door, that is always sit- 
ting in the chair, that is always filling the chamber, 
that is always bestowing gifts. The Lord takes 
away the dust, the form, the touch, the embrace ; 
and gives to us the whole human nature, a fresh 
revelation of power and truth and greatness and 
goodness, that was concealed from us by this fine 
transparency of the flesh. God gives us Death, the 
great revealer, the great restorer, the true and beau- 



DEATH THE GREAT REVEALER. 



O. B. Frothingham, D.D. 




BUY THE TRUTH AND SELL IT NOT 



45 



tiful friend who tells us what our friends were, and 
how dear they were ; and awakes in our hearts 
that dear deep longing which is the earnest of the 
immortal life. Nothing that has truly lived per- 
ishes ; there is no death to truth, to wisdom, to 
aspiration. There is no decay to love. It may 
take a hundred forms, but it will preserve a strong 
consistency ; and the root that is planted here in 
the earth will grow and grow until it puts on im- 
mortality. It may ripen here, but it will flower in 
the great world that is to come. Let us not think 
that God dies when our friend dies, or that the 
hand of Providence is closed when our friend's hand 
drops. Dear friends, let us not be so short-sighted 
and foolish as to imagine that, outside the horizon 
that bounds our eyesight, there is no eternal law, 
no infinite spirit, no endless love, no perfect good- 
ness, no never ceasing thought. Out of that hand 
of God we can never drop ; if our bark sink 'tis to 
another sea, and that sea is the ocean of divine 
immortality. 

"BUY THE TRUTH AND SELL IT NOT." 

J. L. WlTHROW, D.D. 

A17E think of dreams as mere lawless mental work. 

The product of the thinking-machine when 
ungoverned by the presiding will. The mice of the 
mind at play, when the cat of judgment is asleep on 
the couch. They are intellectual caperings, lighter 
of foot than a freed colt. Dreams are, as we observe 
them, rollicking ideas which seem important until 



4 6 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



the day breaks, when they hurry to hide in some 
cranny of the head, seemingly ashamed of the noise 
they made in the night. They are such illusive 
nothings that half the time they vanish before we 
can question their ghosts. And such dreams as 
memory does succeed in arresting and examining 
are usually as silly as they are slippery truants of 
thought. This is what the average dream of our 
experience is. But there have been dreams above 
this average. 

Of old, before the divine oracles were written, 
dreams were sometimes made the organ of their 
utterance. Thus we learn in the long ago days of 
Job the Lord used dreams to reveal His will to men. 
And so Job says : "In a dream, in a vision of the 
night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, then he 
openeth the ears of men." At another time Jacob, 
asleep, " beheld a ladder set up on the earth, and the 
top of it reached to heaven ; and behold the angels 
of God ascending and descending on it." It was 
God's method of telling Jacob what there was no 
Bible at that time to teach him. 

Afterward the favorite son of Jacob, Joseph, 
dreamed of eleven circling sheaves of the wheatfield 
surrounding his own sheaf and making obeisance to 
it. The dream was the teacher from God to tell 
Joseph what he had no Bible to instruct him concern- 
ing his future promotion to Pharaoh's confidence and 
court, with his hungry brethren bending before him. 
The message of the Almighty was sent to Pharaoh 
in the form of a dream, and the fat and lean fields 



BUY THE TRUTH AND SELL IT NOT 47 



and flocks of the night vision afterward became facts 
in the empire. For the pagan monarch of Babylon 
the Most High drew an object lesson on the black- 
board of his busy brain ; and the immense and august 
image which the finger of God outlined on his mind 
has been filling in with historic evidence and affirma- 
tions ever since. When the life of the holy child Jesus 
was in jeopardy it was by a dream that God, His 
father, told Joseph to " take the young child and His 
mother and depart into Egypt." Hence, dreams 
have been used where there was no other organ 
or oracle of the Lord to tell the truth. And if 
there were nothing now that has such a voice of 
God in it that we may intelligently call it the word 
of God, then we might wisely seek an interpretation 
of our present-time dreams. 

When the text was uttered by Jeremiah popular 
faith in anything worthy of the name of " Word of 
God " had gone out of fashion very much. Judah 
had lost faith in Jehovah. The corruptions of Jere- 
boam and Jezebel had spread over from Israel into 
the veins of the two tribes, so that the vices of the 
ten tribes were badly prevalent among the two. Of 
consequence, Judah had lost confidence in Jehovah ; 
had drifted into doubt of the divine law, and dropped 
into that retreat of agnosticism which has ever been 
a favorite refuge for those who would comfort sin- 
ners by silencing conscience. 

In all that land there was left but one man who 
believed, to the central cell of his brain and warmest 
corpuscle of his blood, that God had spoken His 



4 8 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



word to men, and that it must be obeyed instantly, 
implicitly, and persistently if the people would 
obtain His blessing. That man was a young 
prophet named Jeremiah, only about 34 years of 
age — a matchless boy preacher when he began his 
minority at the age of 14, and now a peerless de- 
fender of the true faith at the age of 34, in the full 
prime of his prophetical calling. He stood alone, 
all the nation having not another prophet who was 
candid enough in expression, or clear enough in con- 
viction to admit that there was such a thing as the 
word of God. It had become a question with them 
whether it were possible for men to obtain any 
veritable oracle from the Almighty. And so they 
went about talking this way to the people : " Who 
hath stood in the counsel of the Lord, and hath per- 
ceived and heard His word? Who hath marked His 
word and heard it?" And they earnestly advised 
the people not to regard what Jeremiah gave them 
as the word of the Lord, for this very specious rea- 
son, that no one could be sure of the existence of 
such a thing — " who hath marked His word and 
heard it ? Who can be sure there is any Bible ? " 
But those paganized prophets knew well enough 
that if they broke down the popular faith in the 
current word of God, there must be some sub- 
stitute found. Mankind will have some kind of a 
Bible. Men will either read from the flying birds 
or burning entrails, from the augur or the altar, 
from the seething caldron or spirit-rapping, from 
the sayings of science or the Scriptures of God 



BUY THE TRUTH AND SELL IT NOT 49 

what they will accept as a guide in duty and a pledge 
of glory. And so when the people and prophets of 
Judah lost faith in the word of God they took to 
dreams. And thus the record reports them, run- 
ning here and there, saying, " I have dreamed, I 
have dreamed." This, that, or the other thing they 
dreamed ; it being all sure to be something more 
than the one genuine prophet proclaimed as the 
word of God. Thus things were going in Judah 
and they went so far as to sorely vex the soul of 
Jeremiah and move him to pass on them the ironi- 
cal judgment which is couched in the text : " He 
that hath a dream let him tell a dream, and he that 
hath My word let him speak My word faithfully. 
What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord." 
As much as saying if any one had a dream to tell, 
let him tell it. Dreams are meaningless notions of 
the mind, good for nothing as agents of instruction 
where there is a word of God in hand. But who- 
ever desires to relate them, let it be done and we 
shall enter no dissent. ' ' He that hath a dream, let 
him tell a dream." But when the dreamer attempts 
to pass off his dreams as authority in things relig- 
ious then we shall demur and insist that he that 
hath God's word shall speak that, " What is the 
chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord." 

Learning is one thing and dreaming quite an- 
other. And because we hunger to become wise 
unto salvation we shall not be diverted from the old 
book, of which we believe Israel's singer said the 
living, lasting truth : " The law of the Lord is per- 

Lamps of the Temple— 4 



5o 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



feet, converting the soul." And because it is we 
cannot hope to find any better source of instruction 
or guide of life by either reconstructing it or reject- 
ing it. And last and best we expect to stand in 
our faith of the Bible just as it is as being the word 
of God, because the holy book has always stood 
just as it is. As Tennyson said of the brook, so we 
say of the book : " Books may come, and books may 
go, but the Bible goes on forever." Of the millions 
of idolaters in India, how many of the common peo- 
ple, nay, how many of the educated, know anything 
of the contents of their sacred Bibles? The multi- 
tude know no more of them than you do of the con- 
tents of your great-grandfather's love letters. Of 
the hordes of Mohammedans — even of the hosts of 
those who make pilgrimages to Mecca — how many 
can quote you anything out of the Koran ? What 
literary, scientific, or sacred book of Babylon is 
there in circulation to-day ? Who reads the railings 
of the deists of the eighteenth century ? " The Age 
of Reason " is a salable book still. But in what cir- 
cles of society and learnings will you find these 
vitriolic ravings of Thomas Paine against the relig- 
ion of the Bible put in a prominent place in the 
library ? Once and again there is an attempt made 
to restore to prominence and power some of the old 
dreams of the past, and with them to displace the 
word of God. Naturalism, in some of its many 
shapes, has so often sought to scoff supernaturalism 
out of school. Rationalism has so often sought 
by supercilious airs and lofty argument to invalidate 



BUY THE TRUTH AND SELL IT NOT 5 I 

the very possibility of a direct revelation from God 
to men. But after all their wrath and wrangling, the 
only result is to show their own essential deficiencies 
rather than any defect in this as a divinely authen- 
ticated revelation. And so those occasional excite- 
ments and outbreaks in the book world and the 
world of talk which may set timid Christian people 
in a shiver, let them not alarm us. Within some 
recent months, as we have read, a huge excitement 
has existed in the mining stock markets of San 
Francisco and New York. Between six and seven 
million shares are said to have changed hands 
within a short time. Shares which had been so 
utterly dishonored and dead as not to be quoted 
for months together were suddenly brought to life 
by the methods which millionaires and manipula- 
tors know so well how to use. And those formal, 
and actually valueless certificates were shuffled 
about in the hands of skillful gamblers until the gulli- 
ble public were made to believe them cheap at any 
price. The madness to buy set every excitable 
brain more or less crazy. Caution in dealing was 
dubbed as stupidity, and, swiftly as the Niagara 
River runs to the cataract, men and boys, and 
women, too, tumbled along in the race for a rise in 
mining shares. Where did they end ? Where the 
river finds itself, under the falls ! 

Like this are the repeated efforts that have been 
made to popularize some old pagan conceit or an- 
cient philosopher's fancy that had its day, but 
passed away and now asks to come back again. 



52 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



They only indicate Beelzebub's desire to sell what is 
not worth buying. And the only effect the effort 
should have on us is to make us heed the voice of 
Him who, speaking of His own word, said : " Buy 
the truth and sell it not." 



CHANGES OF THE PASSING CENTURY. 

Rabbi Schiendler. 

THE political changes that have occurred during 
this century are so marvellous that if they were 
prophesied to us to happen during the next hun- 
dred years we would never believe in the mere pos- 
sibility of their occurrence. At the time when 
General Washington took the oath of his exalted 
office the city of New York was a town of medium 
size, the city of Washington not even laid out, our 
western cities not in existence, the colonies that had 
thrown off the yoke of England and had established 
themselves, what was much more, upon a new prin- 
ciple of government, i. e n government by the people, 
of the people, and for the people, did not know yet 
whether their experiment would be successful. 
The small population admitted then of a kind of 
patriarchal administration in which each town and 
hamlet looked out for its own welfare. At that 
time the interdependence of the cities and villages 
of a State, or even that of one State to the others, 
was not by far so well understood and so highly de- 
veloped as it is today. The questions which then 



THE PASSING CENTURY 



53 



stirrea up the population were of a much smaller 
compass and required less genius for their settlement 
than do political questions which arise today. 
Neither were the dangers which threaten every large 
republic so great on account of the simplicity of 
government. But in course of this century several 
successful wars have been waged, among them one 
of such dimensions which the world had never be- 
held before, — a war which was carried on with the 
greatest enthusiasm on both sides, and which re- 
sulted not alone in the abolition of slavery, but 
which showed to the world that it takes an Ameri- 
can to defeat an American. In European countries 
the changes have been as marvellous. A hundred 
years ago Napoleon the Great was still an unknown 
man, Germany a country split into thirty-six differ- 
ent little states, Prussia a mere province, Russia a 
barbarous wilderness ; but within this century France 
rose repeatedly to the mastery of the world and was 
hurled down from the position it had assumed, Ger- 
many became united under the strong hand of 
Prussia, wars were waged that placed all the wars of 
the past in the shade, and political conditions have 
been effected which even the most prophetic genius 
of one hundred years ago would have considered 
impossible. 

Mark now, my friends, the social and industrial 
changes. Slavery in all its previous forms, in the 
form of serfdom, in the form of the feudal system, 
in the form of the slave that could be sold and 
bought, is abolished, and in the place of the former 



54 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



slave has stepped the free laborer. The aristocracy 
of the past has been swept away more effectually 
through the inventive genius of this century, through 
the machines and contrivances which replaced 
human labor tha'ii through the guillotine of the 
French Revolution. A plutocracy has risen upon 
the ruin of the former aristocracy and capital and 
labor have taken the same hostile position to each 
other as did at the dawn of the century the master 
and his slave, the lord and his servant. Hand labor 
has been substituted by machine labor. The indi- 
vidual has lost his individuality and become an in- 
significant part of the large social system. On the 
other hand intelligence has risen and knowledge has 
spread broadcast over all lands. The art of reading, 
writing and ciphering has become the common prop- 
erty of all. Nations rival with one another in the 
establishment of schools and in the invention of im- 
proved educational methods. The press has become 
a power in the land, and rails, telegraphs and tele- 
phone wires have wound their lines around human- 
ity. They have, so to say, gathered together the 
discordant individuals and tied them up in one big 
bundle which now more fitly can be called humanity. 

Mark, furthermore, the progress that has been 
made in morality. Indeed, the world has become 
better in this one century than it has ever been before. 
It has risen higher upon the ladder of morality dur- 
ing the last hundred years than it ever did in any 
previous century. It was knowledge that made men 
not only wiser but better. It was science which by 



THE PASSING CENTURY 



S5 



removing superstition, opened the doors wide for 
the reception of truth. Better possibilities of reach- 
ing the criminal and of enforcing law and order re- 
moved a great many crimes which formerly had been 
flourishing, and if today we are sometimes shocked 
by the news of some atrocious criminal act, and if 
then we are led to believe that such actions never 
occurred in the past, it is merely because our means 
of discovering a criminality are greater today than 
ever before and the news of it is spread much fur- 
ther. We have no true statistics of the moral 
standing of previous centuries, because none were 
kept as they are today. But while at present a 
murder or a fraud committed in far Australia is 
brought to us with all its shocking details the very 
next day, and while the culprit cannot find a spot 
on earth where to hide himself from the eye of the 
law, even a hundred years ago a man who committed 
a crime in one county could enjoy the results of it 
in the very next and his deed was not known except 
in the vicinity nearest where it was committed. 
The very treatment of criminals has been changed, 
and wonderfully changed, during the last century. 
History is utterly silent in regard to this very point, 
and therefore we can say that there never was a 
time in which men have taken such a philanthropic 
view in regard to the treatment of criminals. Com- 
pare the prisons of today with those of a hundred 
years ago and you will behold a change for the bet- 
ter which no prophet of the past would ever have 
dared to predict. 



56 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



In matters of religion what a stupendous modifi- 
cation there has taken place ! Freedom of thought 
and freedom of conscience is granted to a larger ex- 
tent than it was ever before. A man may dare and 
stand up for his conviction. He may dare and stand 
up to criticise the Bible, the book which even a 
hundred years ago stood above criticism as the iden- 
tical word of God. The religions of the past with all 
their different names are tottering in their very 
foundations, and a new and better religion, the re- 
ligion of humanity, is spreading in wider and wider 
circles. 

A hundred years ago the Jew in Europe had still 
to pay a toll, a personal toll, when passing from town 
to town. He was an outcast and within the confines 
of his ghetto he was dreaming of a future as it never 
could come, he was dreaming of a return to Pales- 
tine, of a government under the headship of a Mes- 
siah. The night of superstition hovered around 
him. He had lost all confidence in himself, all con- 
fidence in the vitality of true Judaism. Today he 
stands erect, the free citizen in a free country, recog- 
nized for his ability, honesty, and integrity. He has 
done away with his former superstitions, he has 
disentangled Judaism from all the errors that have 
gathered around it during past centuries, he has 
cleansed the jewel from the dust of ages and holds 
it out in its sparkling beauty to the admiring gaze 
of the world. A hundred years ago he was ashamed 
when he was called a descendant of the Jewish race. 
Today he is proud of that name. 



THE PRESENCE OF GOD 



57 



THE PRESENCE OF GOD THE GLORY OF 



HE presence of God is the best privilege of His 



1 Church. It is her glory that "the Lord is 
there. " If the Lord be among us, the consequences 
will be, first, the conservation of true doctrine. The 
true God is not with a lie : He will not give His coun- 
tenance to falsehood. Those who preach other than 
according to His word, abide not under His blessing ; 
but are in great danger of his curse. Trust-deeds 
and confessions of faith are useful in their way, even 
as laws are useful to society ; but as laws cannot se- 
cure obedience to themselves, so articles of belief 
cannot create faith, or secure honesty ; and to men 
without conscience, they are not worth the paper 
they are written upon. If the Lord be among His 
people, they will cling to the eternal verities, and 
love the doctrine of the cross, not by force of law, 
but because divine truth is the life of their souls. 

Where God is present the preservation of purity 
will be found. The Church is nothing if it is not 
holy. It is worse — it is a den of thieves. Setting 
the seal of its pestilent example upon evil living, it 
becomes the servant of Satan, and the destroyer of 
souls. Who is to keep the Church pure ? None 
but God himself. If the Lord is there, holiness will 
abound, and fruits of the Spirit will be seen on all 
sides. Where God is, there is the constant renewal 
of vitality. A Church all alive is a little heaven, the 



THE CHURCH. 



C. H. Spurgeon. 




53 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



resort of angels, the temple of the Holy Ghost. In 
some of our churches everybody seems to be a little 
colder than everybody else. The members are holy 
icicles. A general frost has paralyzed everybody ; 
and though some are colder than others, yet all are 
below zero. No human power can keep a Church 
from the frost bite which numbs and kills. Except 
the Lord be there, growth, life, warmth — are all 
impossible. 

When the Lord is there, next, there is continuing 
power. With God there is power in the ministry, 
power in prayer, power in all holy work. Is it not 
said of the godly, " His leaf also shall not wither ; and 
whatsoever he doeth shall prosper? " This is so with 
every church where the Lord abides. His presence 
makes it a power with its children and adherents, a 
power with the neighborhood, and a power with the 
age. 

Furthermore, whenever it can be said of an 
assembly, " the Lord is there," unity will be created 
and fostered. Show me a church that quarrels, a 
church that is split up into cliques, a church that is 
divided with personal ambitions, contrary doctrines 
and opposing schemes, and I am sure that the Lord 
is not there. The children of God should be knit 
together. Saints who dwell with God love each 
other "with a pure heart, fervently." Some profes- 
sors act as if they hated each other: I may not say 
" with a pure heart," but I will say, " fervently." 
Where God is present the church is edified in love. 
I shall now close by noticing in the third place, that 



GOD'S PLAN OF EDUCATION 



59 



since this presence of God is the glory of the most 
glorious place, and the choice privilege of the most 
privileged, it is our exceeding joy. The presence 
of the Lord is our delight in every place. 

.We will think of our own dear homes. What a 
delightful family we belong to if it can be said of 
our house, " Jehovah-Shammah, the Lord is there ! " 
Has it a thatched roof and a stone floor? What 
matters ? The father of the family lives near to 
God, and his wife rejoices to be his fellow-helper in 
prayer, while the children grow up to honest toil 
and honorable service. Assuredly that cottage 
home is dear to God, and becomes a place where 
angels come and go. Because God is there, every 
window looks towards Jerusalem. 



GOD'S PLAN OF EDUCATION. 

F. W. Gunsaulus, D.D. 

THE Old Testament has to do with the kinder- 
garten period in the history of man and morals. 
It is in the childhood of man that we behold such 
picture-making as this perform its whole ministry ; 
and the largest culture, the very deepest and most 
thorough-going of all the influences of human na- 
ture imparted by anything from without come 
always from God's perfect understanding of the 
necessities of the human soul in childhood, youth 
and age. God did not educate human nature as 
you and I try to educate our children. God's plan 
was to educate, to draw out ; our plan is to fill up. 



6o 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



God used pictures. We pour in rules and great 
pages which the children have to remember. He 
gave the child, man, pictures which carried them- 
selves in the human soul, repainted themselves on 
the consciousness of human nature ; and thus, with- 
out an effort, the soul has carried them along, even 
to our time. 

Here was the simple matter of the garment which 
the people wore in Israel. It was a quadrangular 
affair and there were tassels hanging at each corner, 
and these tassels contained not only shreds of silk, 
but ideas. Not only did they contain colors, but 
sentiments. He is the finest weaver who weaves 
ideas and sentiments with colors and threads ; and 
God's great system of education, so largely and 
deeply human, so certainly divine, created for every 
Jew this constant picture which he had of the glory 
of the law, the grandeur of that simple, sublime 
righteousness which stood behind all the affairs of 
this world and the affairs of the world to come. 
The contest shows how great a ministry was that 
of the blue thread. " And it shall be to you for 
a fringe that ye may look upon it and remember 
all the commandments of the Lord, and do them." 

It was the strength, the majesty, the hopefulness, 
the glory of that law which came at once into the 
eye of Hebrew prophecy, which helped the Psalmist 
in his deepest and richest song, and which gave to 
Hebrew life such a large ministry of mankind. That 
blue thread was only a strip of the eternal blue 
which overarched all human things, in whose majes- 



god's plan of education 



61 



tic fullness and clearness the worlds rolled on, under 
which man lived his little life, beneath which that 
insect there performed its destiny. The great blue 
sky spoke in that single thread of blue. Man, as he 
wore it about, wore the suggestion of infinity with 
him. Poor is the human life that has not a sugges- 
tion of sky in it ! Poor is the human life which does 
not take a streak of the fathomless blue and put it 
into its fabric. Poor is the human life which does 
not carry with it some suggestion of the infinity, 
that around it there are immeasurable deeps, before 
it large opportunities, and that law, divine law, runs 
everywhere with its benedictions and its hope. 

The ages since the day of the Jew, who, in his 
simplicity, wore his little blue thread, have not im- 
proved upon that divine conception of the greatness 
of law which seized the Hebrew people. Edmund 
Burke said, " Law is benevolence acting by rule." 
Blackstone told us, who studied law in the warm 
summer afternoons when we would have been out, 
altogether lawless, in the meadows with the flowers 
that law is a rule of action. But neither of these is 
so assertive, as this suggestion was, of infinite domi- 
nance of law which should come in the human soul, 
have to do with all its thought, readjust all its con- 
ceptions, and at last order all its life. 

Look into an age like ours, sensitive to the pres- 
ence of law. Other ages were sensitive to another 
thought. The French Revolution cried out, " Lib- 
erty." The great Revolution inaugurated by our 
forefathers, had as its watchword " Freedom." The 



62 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



world everywhere, even in the lines of thinking 
which had to do with science, was careless of the 
conception of law ; but we have come upon a time 
in which we believe in law, and right over against 
political anarchy there stands political tyranny ; the 
power of law and the power of liberty are confront- 
ing one another; and all great statesmen and all 
large-minded publicists see that all real liberty runs 
to law, and all genuine law produces genuine liberty. 

We stand in an age in which this great conception 
of human life in the Jew's garment is more domi- 
nant than it was upon that morning when the first 
Jew wore his beautiful quadrangle, with the blue 
gleaming in the sunlight ; and an anticipation it was 
of the majestic march of the modern scientific idea. 
You open the scientific books and you will find that 
the great word in these books is law. Scientists are 
continually telling theologians that their universe is 
a lawless universe. It is said that the conception of 
miracles involves the easy breakage of law ; that, if 
we are to believe in miracles, we must toss aside all 
ideas of law. Well, if theology has wandered from 
the conception of law, it must not be stigmatized as 
Old Testament theology, for the great conception of 
law in the Old Testament is the one majestic fact 
that, like a rock, lifts itself up in spite of storm and 
tempest ; when the stars have ceased to shine and 
the great storms have swept by, there stands the old 
conception of law. True religion relies upon the fact 
of law, and every genuine reform insists upon the 
dominance of some grander law over that which, for 



LOVE IS ALWAYS WINGED 



63 



the time, has held the lives of mankind. The mira- 
cle of grace is the law of love. We call Christianity 
the religion of love, and Jesus Christ came, the great 
Love-letter of the skies, to the human soul, God's 
manifestation of Love ; but he came as Love to be 
our law. 

There is no such law to your life, my friend, as 
the love of that woman by your side. There is no 
such law to another life as love of country. No such 
commandment puts its imperial mandates upon 
human nature as genuine affection for a great ideal. 
Jesus of Nazareth came to give to mankind 
something to love ; but still a law, a law by every 
bond of affection, by every persuasion of love, should 
hold man, and inspire man to larger ideals and richer 
activities of life. And everywhere throughout 
Christianity we find that love means law, and law 
means love. " If you love me," He said, " keep my 
commandments ; take my law and make that law a 
living thing in flesh and blood, if you love me." It 
is a test of love. " Keep my commandments." 



" LOVE IS ALWAYS WINGED." 

Horatio W. Powers, D.D. 

OUT it is in the closet, if you live nobly, that your 
strength is most graciously renewed. There, 
with the world put away, with faith resting serenely 
on the promise, while the place seemed instinct 
with a hallowing presence, you waited for your 
Lord. Nay, you waited with your Lord, for He 



6 4 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



came in and supped with you, and you with Him. 
On Him you emptied all your burdens and your sins. 
It was enough to feel the pulses of His peerless love, 
to see life's consummate ideal met in His perfec- 
tion ; enough to see every thorn of His crown of suf- 
fering blossom into celestial anadems, and to rest 
without a doubt in the tabernacle of His peace. 
Perhaps you are one who, in the wondrous disclo- 
sures of these hours, can say, " Whether in the body, 
or out of the body, I cannot tell." 

We give grudgingly, we labor in heaviness, we 
minister painfully, we worship coldly, we live meanly, 
until the higher life is begotten within us, — until 
the soul gets a glow and an earnestness and a breadth 
of sympathy, and an impulse of high and pure aspi- 
ration that makes it a joy to do good. Love is 
always winged. If you would conquer your beset- 
ments, rise to a more gracious benevolence, enjoy a 
livelier consciousness of eternal things, and have 
your Christian duties delightful, get the ardent, un- 
selfish, consecrated heart of love, through the grace 
of the Holy Spirit, the Inspirer and Comforter. 

It were easy to picture more in detail instances of 
these spiritual upliftings in the fervor of your first 
discipleship, in times of blessed awakening in the 
churches, and in all your most precious experiences. 
But these are all revived as you recall the bright 
places of your pilgrimage. Through their impulse 
you have done your most genuine work for Christ, 
have had the clearest glimpses of the heavenly 
beatitude, and have gathered the choicest fruits of 



APPLES OF GOLD 



65 



holiness. These experiences give the lie to an athe- 
istic materialism. They strangle doubts of our im- 
mortality. They attest our divine relationship. In 
these illuminations the letter of Scripture delivers a 
grander and more inspiring meaning. In them we 
antedate the everlasting life. 



APPLES OF GOLD IN A BASKET OF SILVER. 



OD made the present earth as the Home of Man ; 



but had He meant it as a mere lodging, a world 
less beautiful would have served the purpose. 
There was no need for the carpet of verdure, 
or the ceiling of blue ; no need for the mountains, 
and cataracts and forests ; no need for the rainbow, 
no need for the flowers. A big round island, half of 
it arable, and half pasture, with a clump of trees in 
one corner, and a magazine of fuel in another, might 
have held and fed ten millions of people ; and a 
hundred islands, all made in the same pattern, big 
and round, might have held and fed the population 
of the globe. 

But man is something more than the animal which 
wants lodging and food. He has a spiritual nature, 
full of keen perceptions and deep sympathies. He 
has an eye for the sublime and the beautiful, and 
his kind Creator has provided man's abode with af- 
fluent materials for these nobler tastes. He has 
built Mont Blanc, and molten the lake in which its 
image sleeps. He has intoned Niagara's thunder, 

Lamps of the Temple — 5 



James Hamilton, D.D. 




66 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



and has breathed the zephyr which sweeps its spray. 
He has shagged the steep with its cedars, and 
besprent the meadow with its king-cups and daisies. 
He has made it a world of fragrance and music — a 
world of brightness and symmetry, — a world where 
the grand and the graceful, the awful and lovely, re- 
joice together. In fashioning the Home of Man, 
the Creator had an eye to something more than con- 
venience, and built, not a barrack, but a palace, not 
a union-workhouse, but an Alhambra ; something 
which should not only be very comfortable, but very 
splendid and very fair; something which should in- 
spire the soul of its inhabitant, and even draw forth 
the " very good " of complacent Deity. 

God also made the Bible as the guide and oracle 
of man ; but had he meant it as a mere lesson-book 
of duty, a volume less various and less attractive 
would have answered every end. But in giving that 
Bible, its divine Author had regard to the mind of 
man. He knew that man has more curiosity than 
piety, more taste than sanctity ; and that more per- 
sons are anxious to hear some new, or read some 
beauteous thing, than to read or hear about God and 
the great salvation. He knew that few would ever 
ask, What must I do to be saved ? till they came in 
contact with the Bible itself ; and, therefore, He 
made the Bible not only an instructive book, but an 
attractive one, — not only true, but enticing. He 
filled it with marvelous incident and engaging his- 
tory ; with sunny pictures from Old-World scenery, 
and affecting anecdotes from the patriarchal times. 



CHILDREN 



6 7 



He replenished it with stately argument and thrill- 
ing verse, and sprinkled it over with sententious 
wisdom and proverbial pungency. He made it a 
book of lofty thoughts and noble images, — a book 
of heavenly doctrine but withal of earthly adapta- 
tion. In preparing a guide to immortality, Infinite 
Wisdom gave, not a dictionary, nor a grammar, but 
a Bible — a book which, in trying to reach the heart 
of man, should captivate his taste ; and which, in 
transforming his affections, should also expand his 
intellect. The pearl is of great price ; but even the 
casket is of exquisite beauty. The sword is of ethereal 
temper, and nothing cuts so keen as its double edge ; 
but there are jewels on the hilt, an exquisite inlay- 
ing on the scabbard. The shekels are of the purest 
ore ; but even the scrip which contains them is of a 
texture more curious than any which the artists of 
earth can fashion. The apples are gold ; but even 
the basket is silver. 



CHILDREN, THE POETRY OF THE WORLD. 

Thomas Binxey, D.D. 

I AM fond of children. I think them the poetry 
of the world, the fresh flowers of our hearts and 
homes; little conjurors with their natural magic, 
evoking by their spells what delights and enriches 
all ranks, and equalizes the different classes of soci- 
ety. Often as they bring with them anxieties and 
cares, and live to occasion sorrow and grief, we 
should get on very badly without them. Only 



68 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



think, if there was never anything anywhere to be 
seen but grown-up men and women, how we should 
long for the sight of a little child ! Every infant 
comes into the world like a delegated prophet, the 
harbinger and herald of good tidings, whose office it 
is to turn the fathers' hearts to the children, and to 
draw the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. A 
child softens and purifies the heart, warming it and 
melting it by its gentle presence ; it enriches the 
soul by new feelings, and awakens within it what is 
favorable to virtue. It is a beam of light, a foun- 
tain of love, a teacher whose lessons few can resist. 
Infants recall us from much that engenders and en- 
courages selfishness, that freezes the affections, 
roughens the manners, indurates the heart. They 
brighten the home, deepen love, invigorate exertion, 
infuse courage, and vivify and sustain the charities 
of life. It would be a terrible world, I do think, if 
it were not embellished by little children. 



BUILDING THE SPIRITUAL TEMPLE. 



HEN by faith in Jesus Christ we become united 



' v to Him and receive the Holy Spirit into our 
hearts, we, as it were, build ourselves, or, in another 
aspect of it, are built by God, as living stones into 
that glorious edifice which Jehovah through the 
ages is rearing for His own eternal abode. When, 
again, by our instrumentality, either directly in the 
efforts which we put forth at home, or indirectly 



W. M. Taylor, D.D. 




THE SPIRITUAL TEMPLE 



69 



through the labors of those whom we sustain 
abroad, we work for the conversion of others, we 
are engaged as underbuilders on the same spiritual 
edifice. David would have counted it the highest 
privilege of his life if he had been permitted to 
build the Temple on Moriah ; and even after the 
prohibition came by the mouth of Nathan, it was 
the joy of his latter years to collect materials where- 
with Solomon, his son, might raise a house worthy 
of Jehovah's worship. Nay, more, in the days of 
Solomon himself, after the gorgeous structure had 
been raised, every one who had done anything, how- 
ever small, in the way of helping on its erection, 
was invested with a peculiar honor in the eyes of 
his fellow-countrymen. As the Psalm expresses 
it : " A man was famous according as he had lifted 
axes upon the thick trees." But a higher privilege 
and a more lasting renown will be the portion of 
him who assists, in the most humble capacity, in 
the uprearing of that Church which is to be " for 
a habitation of God through the Spirit." They 
that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the 
firmament, and they that turn many to righteous- 
ness as the stars forever and ever." Shall this 
honor, my hearer, be thine ? What art thou doing 
now for the building of the spiritual temple of the 
Lord of Hosts? Let me beseech thee to build for 
eternity, by building here. Only beware how 
thou buildest, for, " if any man build upon this 
foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, 
stubble ; every man's work shall be made manifest : 



7o 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



for the day shall declare, because it shall be revealed 
by fire ; and the fire shall try every man's work of 
what sort it is." Remember this also, that if we 
would build acceptably at this temple, we must 
sacredly preserve our own holiness of heart and 
purity of life. It is recorded of Sir Christopher 
Wren, that having heard that some of the workmen 
engaged in the erection of St. Paul's Cathedral, 
London, had been guilty of profane swearing, he 
caused it to be posted all around the works that if 
any one should be heard taking the name of God in 
vain, he should be instantly dismissed ; because he 
considered it an impious thing that any such practices 
should be indulged in by those who were building 
a house of God. But if so much care was taken by 
that great man that those who were working on a 
material structure should hallow God's name on 
their lips, should not we who seek to build up the 
Church of Christ itself endeavor always to honor 
God in our hearts ? They who are engaged in 
church-work, or missionary effort, should be men of 
peace, of holiness, of love themselves ; for if they 
are not distinguished by these characteristics, they 
will do more harm than good to others, and they 
will draw down punishment upon themselves ; for 
" if any man defile the temple of God, him shall 
God destroy." Here, then, is the order of our ex- 
hortations : first build your own selves into this tem- 
ple by faith in Jesus Christ ; thereafter seek to 
build others into it also by your efforts, your con- 
tributions, and your prayers ; and all the while that 



PROGRESSIVE TEACHINGS 



7 ' 



you are working thus, see that you keep yourselves 
unspotted from the world — " for the temple of God 
is holy, which temple are ye. Know ye not that 
your bodies are the members of Christ ? Shall ye, 
then, take the members of Christ and make 
them instruments of uncleanness ? God forbid ! 
Know ye not that your body is the temple of the 
Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, 
and ye are not your own ? for ye are bought with a 
price : therefore glorify God in your body, and in 
your spirit, which are God's." 



PROGRESSIVE TEACHINGS OF THE BIBLE. 

John Henry Barrows, D.D. 

TN such a book, we naturally expect what we call 
progressive teaching, a growth of doctrine, a di- 
vine adaption of truths to men in different stages of 
progress. Like a wise instructor, God gave first the 
lesson most needed at the time, and when, by ex- 
ample, teaching His liberated people just escaped 
from Egyptian bondage the fundamental truth of 
His unity and spirituality. He did not emphasize 
the doctrine of immortality beyond the grave, while 
seeking to burn from their minds the passion for 
heathen, corrupted rites. He did not fasten their 
supreme thoughts on the future life. It is a mis- 
take for us to imagine that all parts of the Bible are 
equally valuable for the teaching of every doctrine, 
when God has given us the gospel and epistles, 



72 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



glowing with the light of the resurrection, we are 
not to rummage among the prophets who were 
thundering against idolatry to find the brightest 
disclosures of the life beyond the grave. It is also 
a mistake to forget that while all Scripture is useful 
for some purposes (for even the dry tables of the 
Chronicles illustrates how careful the Hebrew peo- 
ple were in preserving their genealogies) to suppose 
that all parts of the Bible are equally profitable to 
us, or have an equal weight of authority and inspira- 
tion. It is a mistake to place the Levitical ritual 
and the fourteenth chapter of John on the same 
level, though Leviticus may aid our minds in the 
understanding that sacrifice which Jesus made for 
the sins of the world. In other words, it must not 
be forgotten that while all the Scripture is profita- 
ble for us, much of it has a primary meaning and 
significance directed to those for whom it was first 
written. The lamentations of Jeremiah, though hav- 
ing a universal application, were designed primarily 
for the Jerusalem of the prophet's own time. It is 
a mistake to ignore any part of the Scripture as use- 
less, but it is no mistake for the mind bewildered by 
God's providences to turn to the book of Job rather 
than to the book of Ezekiel, or for the heart that is 
plunged into sorrow to read the Twenty-third Psalm 
rather than the Ecclesiastes, or for the soul seek- 
ing salvation to turn to the Third chapter of John 
the Gospel rather than to the Third chapter of 
Numbers. 

But there is one master-key of the Scriptures, there 



PROGRESSIVE TEACHINGS 



73 



is one main channel of biblical doctrine, there is one 
chief light, a solar splendor which throws its radi- 
ance upon all other bodies and around which these 
other bodies revolve. Our Saviour pointed to it when 
He said of the Scriptures, " They testify Me." When 
darkness fell over Eden, He was the star of promise 
and of hope illuminating the primeval gloom ; when 
the first altar received the first lamb, Abel wrote the 
first letter of the alphabet of redemption. When 
Abraham led Isaac to the summit of Moriah, he 
enacted a faint and far off prophecy of Calvary. 
When the door-posts of the Hebrew home were 
sprinkled with blood, and the unleavened bread was 
eaten within the darkened cottage, God's eyes be- 
held what we now see, a prediction of the Christian 
Passover. Moses led Israel out of Egypt as the type 
of a greater deliverer, the Law given on Sinai was a 
school-master to lead Israel to Christ, the Taber- 
nacle and the Temple enshrined and symbolized the 
truths of redemption and illumination and instruc- 
tion which Jesus embodied ; the high priest, his 
robe, his breast-plate, his purity, his meditation, his 
pity for the people, his sacrifices for them, all spake 
of the coming Redeemer. The kingliness of David 
was a foregleam of the royalty of David's greater 
Son : the Psalms are doubly sacred because Christ 
fulfilled their Messianic hopes and used them at sup- 
per and on the cross. The prophecies are burdened 
with the thought of the sufferings and crowned 
Messiah to come ; all Hebrew history was far-look- 
ing and its eyes were fastened on the Cross. The 



74 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



Gospels are the story of what Jesus said and did in 
the flesh, the Acts of the Apostles are the record of 
what He did in the Spirit, and the Epistles are the 
record of what He wrote in the Spirit : finding Him, 
we find the heart and the brain of the Scriptures ; 
touching Him, we touch their life. 



ET before your mind the young Carpenter of 



^ Nazareth, who has lived a life singularly secluded 
and shut in from the world — a life lonely and little 
understood by those about Him. Then suddenly, 
at thirty years of age, He is thrust into this promi- 
nence and great publicity ; and in the midst of vast 
crowds in Jerusalem He preaches the kingdom of 
God and works many miracles. And now Nicode- 
mus comes to see Him. This Nicodemus is a gen- 
tleman of good position, a magistrate and leading 
citizen. As to his coming by night, it may have 
been that he was scarcely prepared publicly to ac- 
knowledge Christ ; but it is quite as probable that he 
knew it was the only time when he was likely to 
find Jesus at leisure for a quiet hour. The other in- 
cidents recorded of him show us a man, not timid or 
half-hearted, but one brave as well as thoughtful. 

So then this gentleman of influence comes to visit 
the young Prophet of Nazareth, thinking of Him 
certainly as a man sent of God, but quite ignorant 
of His sublime origin and of the great purposes of 



CHRIST AND NICODEMUS. 



Mark Guy Pearse. 




J 



CHRIST AND NICODEMUS 



His coming. He will give him a word of kindly en- 
couragement. We have so accustomed ourselves to 
make the Bible a text-book of doctrines, that much, 
if not all, of the human nature has been crushed out 
of it by our heavy theology. It seems almost 
wicked to suggest that Nicodemus had come to talk 
with the young Prophet about the social and politi- 
cal condition of Israel, much as a leading citizen 
might call today to see a teacher whose clear insight 
and earnest words seem specially suited to the 
times. Thus they sit together. 

It is with a tone of great respect that Nicodemus 
begins the conversation. 

" Sir, we know that Thou art a Teacher come 
from God : for no man can do these miracles that 
Thou doest except God be with him." 

We know — not offensively spoken or haughtily; 
but with the quiet confidence as of a man who is ac- 
customed to speak with authority, whose words are 
respectfully heeded and obeyed. 

Jesus looked at him with those clear eyes which 
read the innermost heart : "Verily, verily I say unto 
thee " — here is the consciousness of a sublime 
authority, of a sublime assurance, instinctive, natu- 
ral. / say unto thee — note the individual dealing. 
Nicodemus was detached from the rulers, from Isra- 
el, from the race. He stood alone in that Presence. 
I say unto thee — Nicodemus, a master of Israel, Ruler 
of the Temple — except a man be born again he cannot 
see the kingdom of God. Please do not think of 
the kingdom of God as meaning heaven — we push 



76 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



everything on to heaven, and so put out of reach 
that which we need most of all now and here. The 
kingdom of God is. of course, the realm in which 
God is known and loved and served — in which He is 
acknowledged King. To Nicodemus it was in Judea. 
To us it is in London or wherever else we dwell ; or 
ought to be. " Thou say est we know. I say unto 
thee, except a man be born again he has no eyes to 
see the kingdom of God — what and where it is : no 
faculties by which he can perceive it. " 

The tone and manner were as impressive as the 
words were mysterious. At once, with the most 
perfect ease, without effort, the young Prophet be- 
comes the Ruler, rising at every word higher and 
higher, until He stands forth the only begotten Son 
of the Father ; and Nicodemus sinks from the con- 
fident assertion to the Lowly inquiry — " How can 
these things be?" And then yet lower still into a 
wondering and adoring silence. 

To the ruler, with his lofty sense of Jewish supe- 
riority, with the glorious memories, the splendid 
privileges, the glowing promises which proclaimed 
his people the favorites of Heaven, it was a bewilder- 
ing word. Of course, the heathen, who were not 
the children of Abraham, needed to be born again. 
They were not of the promised seed ; and by baptism 
they needed to be cleansed and purified before they 
could be permitted to worship God and to become 
the subjects of His kingdom. But what meaning 
had the words for Nicodemus, so pointedly spoken ? 
I say unto thee — He was of the sect of the Pharisees, 



CHRIST AND NICODEMUS 



77 



a Jew of the Jews, of the very innermost circle of 
Heaven's chosen ones. 

Nicodemus is startled, perhaps there is a breath 
of indignation in the reply — " What can you mean ? " 
he asks; " You cannot mean that a man can really 
be born over again." 

Again there came the solemn words of Christ, the 
clear eyes resting upon him and searching the heart. 
"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be 
born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter 
into the kingdom of God." 

Born of water — this was the only new birth of which 
Nicodemus knew anything ; the baptism of those 
converted to the Jewish faith — or the baptism of 
those who at the hands of John prepared them- 
selves for the new manifestation of the kingdom of 
God. But that was only a form of which this was 
the substance and the reality — " Except a man be 
born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter 
into the kingdom of God " — the man is not only not 
in the kingdom, but cannot find any way into it. 
That which is born of flesh is flesh ; that which is 
born of God alone can know God, and love Him and 
serve Him. So the ruler sinks lower; and the lowly 
Peasant from Nazareth rises higher, the teacher of 
the most sublime truths, not doubtfully spoken, or 
dimly guessed, but asserted with authority. Christ 
does not creep from point to point, like mariners of 
old time from headland to headland, uncertain what 
may lie beyond ; He looks forth upon the whole 
round of the truth in its fulness. Verify, verify, 



73 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



I say unto you, we speak that we do know and testify 
that we have seen. 

I say unto thee. The personality gives much 
more than freshness of meaning to the story : it 
gives it a fulness and force that we cannot afford 
to lose. 

If birth and religious advantages could do any- 
thing to put a man into the kingdom of God, Nico- 
demus could surely claim to be there. His descent 
went back without a break to Abraham, to whom it 
was pledged that in his seed should the whole earth 
be blessed ; he belonged to a nation marked off as 
God's peculiar people by deliverances and promises 
such as belonged to no others. If ever a man could 
claim to belong to God by religious observance and 
association, this man could. Upon him was the 
sign and seal of his belonging to God, the mark of 
that initial sacrament with all its significance ; he 
was constant in prayer, in the study of the Scrip- 
tures, and in the observance of the law. If external 
ceremonies could set a man in the kingdom of God, 
none could stand more securely than Nicodemus, 
who through every day and every hour of his life 
was subject to all kinds of religious exercises and 
ceremonies carried out with a scrupulous jealousy. 
If religion is in notions, scriptural and orthodox 
notions, in reverent feelings, in devout prayers, in 
generous sentiments, here then is a man in need of 
nothing. Yet this is the man to whom it is spoken ; 
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born 
again he cannot see the kingdom of God, 



CHRIST AND NICODEMUS 



79 



Was all this, then, a cumbersome folly ? This 
Jewish arrangement of training and worship ; circum- 
cision, altars, priests, sacrifices, prophecies — was it 
all no good, even though God Himself had arranged 
and commanded it ? Even so ; it was all useless, 
unless there be something more and greater than it 
all. No good, precisely as food and light and air, 
as education and commerce and civilization are no 
good to a dead man. Put life into him — then all 
these things shall wait upon him and minister to 
him and bless him. But he must live first. Sacra- 
ments, services, sermons, Scriptures, creeds, may 
minister to life — but there must be life first of all. 
The Holy Spirit of God may make use of any of 
these, and often does, perhaps generally, as the way 
in which He moves upon the soul. But without 
Him they avail nothing. And He is limited to 
none of them. Some would have us think that the 
life of God is infallibly and necessarily communi- 
cated to the soul in the sacraments. We do not for 
a moment make light of the holy sacraments when 
we ask, Where was either Baptism or the Lord's 
Supper on the great day of Pentecost ? It was not 
through either of them that the Holy Ghost wrought 
the sense of sin, and moved the cry — Men and 
brethren, what must we do? Go through the his- 
tory of the early Church as we have it in the New 
Testament and search for anything like the mystery 
of the sacrament — you will search in vain. It is 
generally under the preaching of the word that the 
Holy Ghost moves upon the people. 



8o 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



The very gift of tongues suggests that this is to be 
the means in which the light and fire of God is to 
reach men's hearts. And the prayer of the Apostles 
is for utterance. St. Paul, who is sent to preach the 
Gospel, declares that he was not sent to baptize, 
and rejoices that he had but baptized two of the 
whole Church in Corinth. Yet not always under 
the word is it that the power of the Holy Ghost 
comes upon men, for there is diversity of operation. 
Paul is struck down under a blinding vision from 
heaven, whilst Cornelius is met in the quiet of his 
own chamber. The Ethiopian is returning and sit- 
ting in his chariot when Philip meets him and 
preaches Jesus. Lydia's heart is opened of the 
Lord as Paul talks by the riverside ; and the jailer, 
trembling and overwhelmed by the terrors of the 
earthquake, listens to the story of God's love, and 
is saved. In no case is the sacrament the beginning 
of the work of grace, any more than when the peni- 
tent thief was lifted from Calvary to Paradise. The 
one great essential truth for us to take hold of is 
this — that there must be the actual contact of God 
with our spirit ; that forms however solemn, and 
services however impressive, and truths however 
sublime, are nothing apart from the regenerating 
power of the Holy Ghost. Ye must be born again. 
Must ! so saith Christ the Lord. Verily, verily, I 
say unto thee — with such solemnity is the word 
spoken to each of us. This is everything. It is a 
life and death matter — a matter of eternal life or 
eternal death. As such let us hear it and heed it. 



THE GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY 8 1 

Ye must be born again. How is a mystery, as Christ 
Himself tells us . and a diversity, as the Bible 
teaches, and all experience. But that which con- 
cerns us is the actual work of the Holy Ghost in us, 
imparting to us a new nature. 



THE GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

CIGHTEEN hundred years, and we have had 
conscience preached, and truth! truth! truth! 
Eighteen hundred years, and the world has dragged 
like Pharaoh's chariot in the Red Sea, and it would 
look sometimes as if the sea would whelm the Church 
under. Now when we begin to say : " Is it not 
worth our while to lay the foundations over again ? 
and is it not safe to put the foundations where Christ 
Himself put them : ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart and soul and strength, and 
thy neighbor as thyself?'" — this is the Bible; it 
was all the Bible that existed then. " Love is the 
fulfilling of the law." " God is love." Who so 
loveth not shall not understand. No man can un- 
derstand God by the intellect ; no man can understand 
God by any ratiocinative process. But He that is 
rilled with the afflatus of love knows and feels God, 
just as a man knows when it is summer without 
looking in his almanac ; God is in him, round about 
him, above him, below him. Talk of orthodoxy! 
What has orthodoxy done? In nearly two thousand 
years it has done a good deal. Paul says on one 

Lamps of the Temple — 6 



82 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



occasion that some through Christ had contention, 
hoping to add to His bonds. , What, then? u Never- 
theless I rejoice, because Christ is preached," that is, 
the poorest preaching of Christ is worth something 
to mankind. So I say in regard to the whole sum 
and substance of truth, even the poorest rendering 
for the most part has some direct or indirect influ- 
ence ; but here is the grand foundation which no 
man ever laid, but God Himself lays, and would it 
not be worth while to see whether or not, in the 
ages that are to come, with love, joy, meekness, 
gentleness, faith, hope, as the strenuous, stringent, 
and all-binding soul of theology, the world would 
not fare as well as it has done by conscience and 
persecution ? I say it would do better. You say it 
would not. Well, go your way and I will go mine. 

That leads me to say next that, while the true 
preacher will not leave out any element of reason, 
of history, any element of interpretation, that 
which distinguishes him is the building up of men in 
qualities. "Well," you say, "the only way to build 
a man up in quality is to preach the right kind of 
truth." You have been preaching " the right kind 
of truth" from generation to generation, and do not 
build at all. And more than that, the sweetest 
characters that live are oftentimes outside your own 
Church and orthodoxy. You are obliged to confess, 
you Calvinist, that a man may be just as good a 
Christian as you are, and be an Arminian. You are 
obliged to confess that here and there you find a 
man who disdains all Church economy and ordi- 



THE GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY 



33 



nances, and yet is as sweet a pattern of a Christian 
man as ever was born in the Quaker household. 
You are obliged to confess sometimes : " That man 
is a Christian if ever there was one ;" " My mother 
was a Universalist, yet there never was a Christian 
like her." You bring it to your minister, and he says : 
"Yes; that may be a single instance." Single in- 
stances are like single wedges that split knotty 
logs. If it were so, that all the pugnacious 
theology of the ages gone by had resulted even 
in a small band of exquisitely white flowers and 
beautiful fruit, there would be something more to 
be said; but when you are obliged to say that God 
in His sovereignty converts men outside churches, 
outside theologies, that in the great illustrious 
cycle of love men are growing up into Christ Jesus, 
though they are rejected in the Church and rejected 
from the pulpit, yet they are among those that 
really teach mankind what Christian life is — so long 
as you are obliged to make such a confession as that, 
how can any man say that the development of 
Christian character is dependent on the theological 
lore and literature of the world. I do not disdain 
it; I say, in regard to different ages, it was the best 
exposition they could give ; in a ruder day, with 
more barbarous manners and customs, it led on and 
helped on, first as the old chain armor in days gone 
by was serviceable enough, but would be miserable 
to wear nowadays ; so I hold that operose and hard 
and barbaric explanations of the mediaeval ages 
might do some good in that time ; but they should 



8 4 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



long ago have fallen away from men advanced, as 
we are advanced, in Christian temper and disposi- 
tion. The business of the Church is not to use the 
Church as an insurance office by which a man seeks 
to protect himself against future fire. The business 
of the minister is to build up men in the qualities of 
Jesus Christ ; for that he is to preach. All the tests, 
both for receiving men and advancing men in 
Church life, are of the disposition. As the disposi- 
tion goes unharmed through death to its glorious 
crown, so in Church life, it should be the business 
of every man to build men up to the perfect man in 
Christ Jesus. There are a great many administra- 
tions, a great many economies, says Paul ; they are 
all of God, and if you will let them alone, they will 
work out safely and be beneficial' in the long run. 
Liberty is good in the Church and in theology, as 
everywhere else ; but it is the only place where 
there is no liberty of thinking. There is liberty in 
politics, in science, in philosophy ; it is only in the- 
ology that men are kicked out of livelihood and out 
of position if they think freely. The day is coming 
when we will better all that. I am the son of a 
theologian. I was baptized into theology. I be- 
lieve some of it ; and some I do not, blessed be God ! 
The days are coming when belief will have to take 
a seat below love, when the head will have to do 
honor to the heart. Then we can say, as the apos- 
tle said of the Church : " Ye are our epistles, known 
and read of all men." It is not, therefore, so much 
as an iconoclast that I say these things ; it is not that 



THE GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY 85 



I scorn theology and all the steps of knowledge. 
No man believes in knowledge more than I do ; but 
I would assign it to its proper place, its subordinate 
rank ; I deny that it has a right to wear the crown , 
I say that the heart is to wear the crown. 

One thing more. When I look sometimes at the 
condition in which the world is left ; when I am 
obliged to say that all Ethiopians are my brothers ; 
when I look upon the Asiatics and see how they are all 
left by Providence, I am thrown into deep dejection. 
It is not men that are so valuable in my sight, but 
my God. When I come to look for the eternal Father, 
the God of all compassion, of all love, and I find 
that the doctrines of the Church have spread such a 
veil over Him, and I cannot find Him, I am like 
Mary in tears, and I say : " They have taken away 
my Lord, I know not where they have laid Him." 
And any seeming assault upon theology is not be 
cause I hate schools, not because I hate thinking, 
or systematic thinking, but it is because I love my 
God and my fellow-men, and I would tear away 
every veil and blow away every cloud that should 
prevent the full shining of the love of God for man- 
kind. When I look at this condition of the nations 
I must find some other reason than that given in 
the creeds why God has suffered the world to go on 
as He has. For if He has doomed mankind to 
eternal destruction, except upon certain conditions, 
and then left them without Sabbaths, without Bibles, 
without priest, without altar, and if He continues to 
do it from generation to generation, oh, I cannot 



86 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



worship that organized and perpetual cruelty , I 
cannot worship that ; and I take refuge in this 
thought of Paul: we see only a fragment here; we 
do not know what the remote future is ; but this is 
disclosed to us — that future is to be the grand de- 
velopment of the sweetest and noblest days that 
have dawned upon the conscience of mankind in 
this world. And I take courage, and I say, there is a 
grand march in the universe. I perceive that there has 
been in time a gradual unfolding of higher and 
higher qualities, and I believe that may be carried 
forward, and is carried forward, not here alone, not 
alone at death, but on the other side, and that as 
when we plant the corn (according to Paul's other- 
where figure), then up comes the blade, and then 
the stem, and then the head, and the grain in 
the head, or ear, so I feel that in some great field 
such as I cannot comprehend, God has planted a 
future that shall bear a harvest of shouts of glory 
and honor and salvation to Him that sitteth on the 
throne, and to the Lamb. All the steps, all the 
interpretations I do not know ; but the whole uni- 
verse is moving up, yea, and without knowing it. 
And, methinks, that in those innumerable multitudes 
of stellar hosts there are some populated worlds, 
and that there are some great moral truths that are 
being developed there as here ; and as we hear often- 
times in strains of music exquisite stanzas and 
cadences, but by-and-by are permitted to come to a 
concert-room where Beethoven swells in all the 
grandeur of his symphonies ; so there are, I believe, 



THE GRANDEUR OF LIFE 



87 



elements in the universe, here some, and there some, 
and by-and-by, when the great oratorio is chanted 
round the throne of God we shall see what the 
meaning of these movements is. Now we see 
through a glass darkly, then face to face ; and we 
shall know as we are known. And in that great 
day, O my soul, be not thou laggard nor broken- 
winged ; let thy head be love and thy wings be faith 
and hope ; and foremost to where my mother stands, 
my father, my children, and whom I love best on 
earth, let me wing my way ; only amid them all, and 
before greeting, I may cast myself at the feet of 
Him who loved me and died for me and washed 
me in His own blood. To Him, Jesus, Father, Son, 
and Holy Spirit, to Him be the praise ! 



THE GRANDEUR OF LIFE. 

Bishop J. P. Newman, D.D. 

TT is a grand thing to live. Whether life is the 
ephemera of the hour, or the eagle of a century ; 
the flower of a day, or the yew-tree of three thou- 
sand years; the infant of a week, or the man of three- 
score years and ten, — life is a glorious fact. 

Life is everywhere. It is the only thing of which 
God seems prodigal. There is life in the earth and 
on the earth, in the sea and on the sea, and through- 
out the vast expanse of the atmosphere. Where 
there is motion there is life, and motion is coexten- 
sive with creation. There is life in the fungi, in the 
lichens, in the blood-rain, in the fire that sparkles on 



88 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



the summer sea, in the motes that dance in the sun- 
beam, and in the dew-drop — diamond of Aurora. 
Give to the microscopist more light, and he will re- 
veal more life. It detracts not from the divine 
goodness that one animal feeds on another; for the 
food is living, and the totality of life is thereby in- 
creased. 

What is life? Biologists have toiled in vain at 
this splendid theme, but the heart of Nature's mys- 
tery has baffled all research ; yet life is. Let us 
make the most of it. As we approach the isthmus 
between two years, the old and the new, the con- 
templation of human life in its manifold relations is 
the fittest of all themes. It is deplorable that so 
many of our biologists and essayists are responsible 
for much of the gloom and contempt which en- 
shroud our mortal existence ; their expressions may 
be true of the selfish life, but not of one made 
grand and influential by Christianity. Life is the 
gift of God. Some Cuvier may from a fossil bone 
reconstruct an animal of an extinct species, shape 
its features faultlessly, and by clock-work simulate 
a strange hypocrisy of life. That is all he can do. 

Tyndall has given as the last analysis of science 
that " all life comes from antecedent life." Would 
that he had risen to the sublime truth that there 
is but one life in the universe, the life of God, and 
that all other forms of life are importations! If the 
value of the gift is measured by the character of the 
giver, how unspeakably grand is human existence ! 
And when the purposes of the gift are considered, 



THE GRANDEUR OF LIFE 



89 



the significance thereof is enhanced beyond estima- 
tion. 

Life is twofold, personal and relative ; the per- 
sonal object is the formation of character, the con- 
dition and the source of immortal joys. Hence our 
existence, from the cradle to the grave, is the great 
moulding period, wherein knowledge is acquired, 
passions engendered, habits formed, tastes devel- 
oped, destiny fixed. 

Life is a web ; time is a shuttle ; man is a weaver. 
" My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle." The 
principle of action is the thread in the web of life. 
Of that web two things are true, — that which enters 
therein will reappear, and nothing will reappear 
which was not put therein. 

In our life-tapestry we may weave forms of jus- 
tice, truth, and holiness ; of faith, hope, and charity; 
of saints, angels, and God. That piece of life-tapes- 
try may cover the walls of our mansions of blessed- 
ness, to excite the wonder and admiration of angels, 
or in that tapestry of life we may weave the form of 
Silenus with the ears of an ass, surrounded with liv- 
ing satyrs and dancing-girls ; Bacchus, holding in his 
hand the wine-cup, with swollen cheeks and bloated 
body, accompanied by the bacchantes in frenzied 
disorder, chanting the song of the drunkard and ever 
followed by the tiger of destruction ; or of Mars, reek- 
ing with the blood of his fellows, ever attended with 
the horrid retinue of clamour, anger, discord, fear, 
terror, famine, and death ; or of Mercury, who filched 
the arrows of Apollo and the girdle of Venus, The 



90 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



web will be what we make it. It is not always ap- 
parent to us what we are weaving. The pictured 
side of life's tapestry is turned toward the Almighty; 
that which is seen by us is often a mass of confused, 
colored knots and therads. To some, who are 
fancying that they are weaving an angel form, eter- 
nity will reveal a demon. The Greeks have given us 
the fable of the Fatal Sisters to illustrate the origin, 
progress, and termination of life. Clotho held the 
distaff and attached the thread of life . Lachesis, 
with her spindle, spun off the thread , and Atropos 
held a pair of scales to weigh the thread, a sun-dial 
to measure its length, and a pair of scissors to cut it 
off. These three Fatal Sisters ever attend us. 
What shall be the web of your life? 

Were I an artist I would paint a picture of a fawn- 
ing dog, a staring lion, and a biting wolf, to represent 
time to come, time present, time past. Will the 
world be the better in morals and piety for the life 
you are now living? 



THE BELLS OF PEACE. 

David Swing. 

TF any consideration may add anything to the 
merit of Decoration Day, that merit might be en- 
hanced by the fact that out of this anniversary have 
fallen all the sectional feelings, the local hostilities 
which, having caused the great conflict, followed for 
a time the victory and the peace. Decoration Day 
stands now for all that is good in the present and in 



THE BELLS OF PEACE 



9* 



the future. It contains no element of exultation 
over any body of men that was conquered. In our 
National Congress and even in the President's Cabi- 
net of the present are men who led in the disunion 
effort of 1 86 1. These men have come back to the 
old flag, and although there remains in the South 
some advocacy of secession, this advocacy has died 
as rapidly as ever perished any deeply rooted 
political idea. 

Decoration Day comes now like our other na- 
tional days — not with a roll-call of any enemies, 
but with a loving roll-call of friends. As in our 
July festival, there is no anger toward King George 
or Victoria, or England, so in this May celebration 
there is no wrath hidden or expressed for the John- 
sons and Lees and Jacksons who led once the hosts 
who fought against the country. The prosper- 
ity of the country, its peace and greatness, 
and that these were bought with the life of an 
army now invisible in the spirit world, are the 
thoughts which fill these passing hours. And the 
God of Nature helps all these memorial periods in 
our world, whether they lie in religion or in political 
life, by His universal law that anger shall be tem- 
porary and good will perpetual. Nature has made 
storms transient, the blue sky more constant. 

Our churches should take some part in this dis- 
tribution of flowers, because those times of battle 
did many kind acts for the many forms of church 
faith and practice. The greatest service was ren- 
dered in the salvation and firmly founding of the 



9 2 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



Union ; but the events of those months helped to 
bring to an end the reign of mere Christian dogma 
and to set up instead the empire of Christian good 
works. No religion suited the home of the camp 
except the simple teachings of Jesus Christ. There 
was a four-year vacation granted to those notions 
which compose a Calvinist, a Methodist, and an 
Episcopalian, and there was a four-year reign of a 
prayer to God, a faith in God, and of a Christian 
charity which could make a wide use of the word 
brother, and of a Christianity which could 
send goods to the soldier or could visit the 
wards of a hospital. The Christian Commission 
sprang up in a power more impressive than that of 
a church court. This "commission" was the pre- 
vailing religion, and it seldom inquired or cared 
whether it was to meet in a Baptist or a Methodist 
house of worship. It scraped lint or packed blan- 
kets with an utter disregard for the views which had 
been elaborated at old Nice or Trent or Geneva. 

A Scotch pastor of this city had reached middle 
life without ever having sung as a hymn a human 
composition. His denomination had for centuries 
permitted no hymn to be used except a psalm of 
David, but when the recruiting camps were opened 
near this city this Doctor of Divinity led the regi- 
ments often in a Sunday service. When it came to 
camp-singing, the Psalms of David did not seem to 
meet closely enough the feelings of the new wor- 
shipers, and when the preacher had taken care of 
the sermon he permitted the soldiers to take care 



THE BELLS OF PEACE 



93 



of the singing. It was not long before the Scotch 
pastor began to find his own heart deeply satisfied 
with some human compositions. He came out of 
the war rich in both the Hebrew psalms and those 
of America. Thus all through the country a vast 
work, a dark sky and a great sorrow lifted all the 
churches above the old reasons of strife and made 
them one in the character of Jesus, their Master. 
Out of the upheaval of the heart came with many 
other songs the " Battle Hymn of the Republic," 
whose wonderful words and music sounded in all 
the camps of rest and in all the marches when full of 
either victory or defeat. It was always an inspira- 
tion : 

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, 
He is tramping out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are 
stored ; 

He hath loosed the fateful lightnings of His terrible swift sword ; 
His truth is marching on. 

Of this hymn the last verse stands almost without 
an equal in all the known battle songs of any land : 

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, 
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me, 
As He died to make men holy let us die to make men free, 
While God is marching on. 

Many of the flowers of to-morrow will be placed 
over hearts that were made strong and heroic by 
that rare combination of thought and melody. Four 
years of such a unity of the churches and of such a prac- 
tical religion made too wide a separation between 
the pulpit and its verbal orthodoxy to permit the 



94 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



myriads of preachers ever to go back to their old 
occupation of acute distinctions and sectarian de- 
bate. The pulpit remained out with the people, 
and the battle hymns moved over into the popular 
music of the Roots and Blisses and Sankeys into 
words and music of a general new tenderness and a 
more exact fitness. Meanwhile the four years of 
benevolence, poured out toward the sufferers in the 
tented field, built up in the church a virtue and a 
happiness from which it could not ever turn back, 
and when the sympathy with the soldier was no 
longer needed, the heart awakened and enlightened, 
then offered its love to mankind. As there are 
springs and even rivers which were opened once by 
an earthquake to flow forever, after the convulsion 
had passed, so are there human virtues which 
having been kindled into life by the tumult of war 
go on in activity long after the ringing of the bells 
of peace. 

Could all the forms of life, thought and emotion 
which owe a debt of gratitude to our dead soldiers 
appear in person to-morrow to decorate graves, we 
should see a grand group moving in love through the 
cemeteries where these heroes sleep. Liberty would 
be there, happy in her release from the dishonor of 
having one foot upon the neck of the African ; 
Columbia would be there, having in her hand the 
scroll of the Constitution with the idea of slave 
erased ; the slave would be seen with chains re- 
moved, and with form erect in free manhood ; the 
Union would be there full of gratitude for its escape 



WATER AND WINE 



95 



from anarchy, and for its peace and hope ; the 
Church would be in the radiant throng, happy that 
the soldiers had led her out from the cloister into the 
field, had rewritten in deeper love her prayer, her 
sermon and her hymn ; education, art and the 
genius of home would also appear, begging permis- 
sion to strew flowers upon the graves in which death 
has been transformed into so many shapes of blessed 
life. 

Thus comes our Nation with its peculiar memo- 
ries. Let us not barter them away for any other 
pages of history, filled up by any other land or time. 
They are not only great records, but they are our 
records — an inseparable part of our public and per- 
sonal life, to be studied and loved, and remembered 
forever. 



WATER AND WINE. 

David Swing. 

QOME of the old poets thought the drinking-cup 
was a cup of poetry and eloquence, but the 
delusion has died under the accumulating witnesses 
of all times. Each glass of spirituous drink is the 
death of clear and beautiful thought. The tongue 
thickens, the words lose their sharp outline, the eye 
its flash under even the best of wines. When God 
made man, He declared a partnership between tem- 
perance and inspiration, and made a cup of w r ater 
the emblem of all clear thought. It is a singular in- 
cident that while Anacreon and Horace drank wine 



96 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



heavily they made Helicon send forth only streams 
of pure water for their nine muses to drink. There 
are many of these fountains : Helicon, Pindus, 
Parnassus, which could lend inspiration to the god 
or the mortal who would taste their crystal drops. 
The fabled springs were located by men who knew 
that the wine-cup was an eclipse of the intellect, a 
stupor not to be endured by a god. What a won- 
derful logic was that which planned Perian Springs 
for all high-born beings, and which gave Anacreon 
a flagon of wine ! What a wisdom still is that by 
which our scholars send the nine muses to a spring 
of pure water for securing a new afflatus, and then 
seek their own inspiration in a barrel of whisky! 
What is so good for the muses ought to be good for 
man. All intoxicating drinks take away that soul 
which relates man to the Creator. Wine is the 
paralysis of thought. 



HE point of view from which I shall speak is 



that of total abstinence. It is, I know, the un- 
popular view, the depreciated view, the despised 
view. By taking it I rank myself among those of 
whom some speak as unpractical bigots and ignorant 
fanatics. But, because I believe it in the present 
need to be the only effective remedy for an other- 
wise hopeless evil, therefore I take it undeterred. 
Public opinion, my brethren, is a grand power. It is a 



THE VALUE OF PUBLIC OPINION. 



Archdeacon Farrar. 




VALUE OF PUBLIC OPINION 



97 



mighty engine for good if we can array it on our side 
He who despises it must be either more or less than 
man ; he must be puffed up by a conceit which mars 
his usefulness, or he must be too abject to be reached 
by scorn. He, therefore, that affects to despise 
public opinion stands self-condemned ; but yet pub- 
lic opinion has, many a time, been arrayed on 
the side of wrong ; and he who is not afraid to 
brave it in defense of righteousness, he who, in a 
cause which he knows to be good, but which his fel- 
low-men do not yet understand, is willing to be 
ranked among the idiots and fools, he is a partaker 
with all those who, through faith and patience, have 
inherited the promises. It was thus — it was for the 
cause of scientific truth — that Roger Bacon bore his 
long imprisonment, and Galileo sat contented in his 
cell; it was thus— it was for the cause of relig- 
ious truth — that Luther stood undaunted before 
kings ; it was thus that, to wake the base slumbers 
of a greedy age, Wesley and Whitefield were con- 
tent to " stand pilloried on infamy's high stage, and 
bear the pelting scorn of half an age ; " it was thus 
that Wilberforce faced in Parliament the sneers and 
rage of wealthy slave-owners ; it was thus, " in the 
teeth of clenched antagonisms," that education was 
established, that missions were founded, that the 
cause of religious liberty was won. The persecuted 
object of today is the saint and exemplar of to-mor- 
row. St. John enters the thronged streets of the 
capital of Asia as a despised Galilean and an un- 
noticed exile ; but, when generations have passed 

Lamps of the Temple — 7 



9 8 



LAMPIl c the temple 



away, it is still his name which clings to its indistin- 
guishable ruins. St. Paul stands, in his ragged 
gabardine, too mean for Gallio's supreme contempt ; 
but today the cathedral dedicated to his honor 
towers over the vast imperial city where the name 
of Gallic is not so much as heard. " Count we over 
the chosen heroes of this earth," says a great orator, 
" and I will show you the men who stood alone, 
while those for whom they toiled and agonized 
poured on them contumely and scorn. They were 
glorious iconoclasts, sent out to break down the 
Dagons worshiped by their fathers. The very 
martyrs of yesterday, who were hooted at, whom 
the mob reviled and expatriated ; — today the chil- 
dren of the very generation who mobbed and reviled 
them are gathering up their scattered ashes to 
deposit them in the golden urn of their nation's 
history ! " 



UNAPPRECIATED BLESSINGS: A REVIEW. 

Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch. 

'"TEN years and a half have rolled by since we 
joined our strength, our faith and our lives ; 
ten years of varied experirnent and checkered ex- 
perience ; ten years of joy and ten years of sorrow ; 
and now these last three months give to me an as- 
surance, I confess, I never had before, that our 
relations were of the closest, and that more than 
the little I could give you of wisdom and research 
you valued my own personality ; and this conscious- 



UNAPPRECIATED BLESSINGS 



99 



ness that not like a stranger I am to you, but that 
personal sympathy comes from you to me ; this con- 
sciousness makes me know today that these last 
three months have been, strange as it may sound, 
the most glorious of my life. And this hour, what 
shall I say of it ? I am at home again, home among 
my own ; home among you, my friends. These 
roses will wither, but this I know; their perfume 
spiritual will linger, and many a Sunday morning 
will be rendered bright by the recollection of 
this moment ; and should ever rise a sense of net- 
tling disappointment, it will be checked by the mem- 
ory of your kind greetings to me when I came back 
to resume the thread of my labors broken by the 
jealousy of three long months. 

Probably one question arises, as in my mind, so in 
yours this morning, and you will allow me to at- 
tempt to find an answer to it. Why are we visited 
by these messengers that seemingly night-born chil- 
dren of woe are weaponed with the sharp sword of 
suffering ? Why is it not all sunshine in life ? Why 
are the skies occasionally overcast by threatening 
clouds? Why is not success always our lot, and 
why are we compelled so frequently to have fellow- 
ship with disappointment ? Why, in this world of 
ours, in this life of ours, are so often demanded sac- 
rifice and tears ? Why are so many hours reft of 
laughter and merriment? 

That question has been asked ever since man be- 
gan to demand an account of his own being, and of 
his own destiny ; for even the first man, that, as 



IOO 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



man, stepped out upon the broad arena of the earth 
must have felt the weight of checked success, and 
burden of unmerited disappointment. May be he 
had built a little hut to seek shelter against the rains 
that came in torrents from the clouded sky ; and the 
very moment that he seemed to feel the safety of 
his completed home, the minions of the tempest 
came and whirled it to nothing ; the planned and 
executed work of many an hour full of doubtful 
striving, and full of eager endeavor was in vain. 
That first man, scarce more than brute himself, must 
then have asked the question : " Why is this thus ? 

I have planned and I have labored, and now as 
the winds sweep by me their hoarse cry sounds like 
mockery at my downfall and avenged presumption." 
And in this wise not merely he, the first man, but 
all his posterity, have asked that question, and as 
often as they have put it, so varied has been the an- 
swer. What we call antiquity or heathendom ascribed 
this constant recurrence of evil visitations to the 
jealousy, the passions, the selfishness of God. In 
their legends thev tell of a time when such was not 
the lot of man. when the whole world was bathed in 
sunshine, when the gardens were garlanded in most 
beautiful flowers, when the trees were vested and 
verdured in their noblest foliage and their ripest 
fruitage : when man had but to wish and the wish 
was answered ; when man had but to stretch out his 
hand and what he needed was given to him. Then 
came of a sudden the reversal of conditions : for man 
had dared to presume to be like unto the gods; he 



UNAPPRECIATED BLESSINGS 



IOI 



had asked questions and, driven along by his desire 
to know, had stepped beyond the limits which the 
Gods had set him. In consequence of the curiosity 
of man — or rather of his mate, for unto woman all 
evil is ascribed by these legends, the Gods doomed 
and damned him to constant struggle with adversity, 
to constantly recurring visitations of evil. That is 
the answer given by all of antiquity. 

We cannot wonder, then, that despair finally en- 
tered the heart of man, and his philosophy of life be- 
came one of two : " Enjoy thyself as long as thou 
mayest, for the cloudless sky of a moment will soon 
be overcast ; " or, " Resign thyself with solemn and 
stubborn courage to bear and thus rob the fates of 
their prey by defying them to terrorize and crush 
thee." The end of all ancient philosophy is thus 
Epicureanism, or the doctrine of the Stoic. 

When Christianity came that old problem was one 
of the burning questions of the time, for those were 
sad times, " times out of joint." The ancient civi- 
lization was trembling from base to dome ; it had 
left the hearts of men chilled and benumbed by the 
burden of this consciousness of inherent weakness. 
Man could not be content to feel that the body's 
beauty was the sum of life. He demanded some- 
thing higher and better. 

Then Christianity came and taught that evil was 
the consequence of sin, sin individual and sin collec- 
tive, sin done now and sin transmitted through the 
ages ; and painted a condition of things better, but 
not here, no, beyond the grave, where evil would 



102 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



be no more, and suffering would be no longer felt. 
This answer of Christianity to that question is not 
original with the church ; researches into the com- 
parative nexus of the religions of the world, have 
shown to us that Christianity is largely influenced, 
not so much by the religion of Palestine, as by the 
creed of India. There by the Ganges life is exceed- 
ingly prolific and exuberant, and by the very recoil 
of this wealth man is led to despair of life ; why, the 
jungles are thick with plants rising over night to 
their fullest growth, and under their cover the vul- 
ture and the beast of prey, the tiger and the serpent 
are everywhere lying in wait for their victim, man, 
doomed to dreamy death in that reeking home of 
life. And thus the Ganges banks became vocal as 
answer to that eternal question with the doctrine of 
despair, that life itself is suffering, and that, there- 
fore, non-existence is preferable to existence. In 
some manner or other — this is not the place nor is 
the hour proper to explain how — this doctrine grad- 
ually reached Palestine, and before even Christianity 
came, the thought had developed and struck roots 
that life was not worth living ; that life itself was a 
curse and non-existence was a blessing. From the 
river Ganges sounded first and the rivers of civilized 
humanity echoed through the eighteen hundred 
years the doleful tale that highest aim was resigna- 
tion of the joys of this life and hope for a condition 
beyond, when suffering would be no more. And 
strange as it may seem, foe and friend meet to-day on 
this platform, for while Christianity as a religion is 



UNAPPRECIATED BLESSINGS 



I03 



denied by the prophets of the new philosophy, the 
fundamental note of that creed is sounded and 
sounded again by modern writers. Pessimism and 
despair is the credo of modern thought. The strug- 
gle for existence, they tell us, is the law according 
to which everything shapes itself, but that struggle 
is terribly cruel, and it were better not to be whirled 
along in its grasp ; it were better not to be than to 
be at all. The few bright days are but a foil to the 
many dark hours ; the few smiles make all the more 
hideous the frowns that come to us ; the few crowns 
we wear are, after all, crowns of thorns. That is 
their creed ; and to-day humanity apparently stands 
where it stood in ancient times. Two doctrines of 
life are inculcated ; the one, " Enjoy thyself as long 
as thou mayest, for to-morrow thou must die ; let us 
eat, drink and be merry, to-morrow peals the hour of 
our death ; " and the other is : " Resignation ; bare 
thy breast to the storms, and defy them to do their 
worst ; and if thou weary of the conflict, why, take 
refuge in a vial of poison, and all is over ; the future 
after all, is darkness and extinction." Is there then 
no answer to the question, Whence the evil, whence 
the suffering ? Is there no other reconciliation of 
the contrast and the conflict of life, than this hope 
for a future adjustment, not here ; than a vision of 
things not to be enjoyed as long as we are this side 
of the grave ? 

I hold there is • and the prophets of old have al- 
ready preached that message divine ; and we today, 
the children of this age, can do no better than to sit 



io4 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



reverently and humbly at the feet of those great 
teachers who announced " Peace" from the tower- 
ing hills of Palestine, whose thoughts rose heaven- 
ward as did the cedars of Lebanon, and whose 
words pointed to the higher life, as did the tower- 
ing walls of the temple on Mount Zion, symbol of 
a higher strife and nobler aspiration than had a 
home in the valley of selfishness, the valley yawning 
at the foot of the glorious mountain range. 

Friends, that answer is this: Sin and suffering in 
the common sense of the word are not co-related; 
suffering is not a sign of sin. To a certain extent 
suffering may come as a punishment for our own 
wrong-doing. There are certain laws eternal, and woe 
to him who violates these laws. Much of our physical 
suffering is of our own making and of our own choice. 
The laws that regulate health are eternal laws and they 
cannot be with impunity defied. Yet we are of a gen- 
eration that habitually disregards these silent warn- 
ings ; and only when their voices speak with the 
sharp sting of needles do we open our eyes to the 
fact that for years and years we have thrown down 
the gauntlet to the spirits presiding over health and 
sickness ; and now, when after years and years of 
daring disregard they strike us down, we must own 
that it is our own shortcomings that invited suffer- 
ing. Especially in this, our country, and especially 
in this, our city, where there is incessant tingling of 
nerves and constant flush of energy ; where not a 
day passes but new enterprises are launched, and 
not an hour strikes but with its tolling sound comes 



UNAPPRECIATED BLESSINGS 



I05 



the announcement of a new project, we are con- 
stantly violating those eternal laws, and what suffer- 
ing comes in the wake of our daring is not of the 
essence of things necessary, but is of our own folly. 
We all sin in this regard. You, the men of business ; 
we, the men of the study ; you, the men of what 
you call an active life ; we, the men of silent 
thoughtful contemplation ; we all attempt to do too 
much ; we are like the young and senseless boys, 
impatient of the flight of time ; the hours roll along 
too slowly, and yet the day having but twenty-four 
hours is asked to stand still so that it might hold 
within its twenty-four sections what would properly 
belong to double the span of time. While we are 
all attempting too much, when finally suffering 
comes, let us not accuse the constitution of the 
world, but let us confess : we are at fault ; we have 
to blame none other than ourselves. Now, as there 
are physical laws that cannot be violated, so there 
are moral and spiritual laws that cannot be broken 
without bringing upon him who breaks them sad 
and bitter hours. There is punishment inward as 
well as outward. Ask those who best read the hie- 
roglyphics of the human heart ; listen to the songs 
and the plaints of the poets : those whose eyes are 
weaponed with a keen insight into the turmoils and 
troubles of the human soul, they will tell you that 
of all suffering that is worst which comes with con- 
science awakened ; that to the degree the moral law 
is broken, commensurate is the consequent inner 
punishment. The flowers lose their perfume ; the 



106 LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 

birds their silver melody; the sunshine even its 
cheer for him who feels within that he is un- 
worthy of the charm that is cast upon him. In 
such hours let us beware of accusing the constitutor 
and the constitution of the world ; we are the sinners. 

But, will you say, is there no suffering of another 
kind; do we not all suffer the one for the other? 
Yea, we do, and this is not of evil but of good. For 
one man is no man ; brutes live a life by them- 
selves ; what affects one lion will leave unscathed 
and untouched the fellow lion ; what affects one 
man, be he the least among us, affects gradually all 
men, and it is through suffering that humanity 
learns that we are not here for selfish purposes. It 
is in that hard school of trial that men are taught 
that they are their brother's keeper, that the fellow- 
man is not merely a competitor, but is a co-operator. 

This suffering which vicariously befalls humanity 
is also, to a certain extent, a punishment ; punish- 
ment for our own blindness and bigotry ; punish- 
ment for our ignorance and our indolence ; 
punishment for our lack or dullness of the sense of 
responsibility. Every great disaster that befalls us 
sounds the warning : " Man, thou hast not as yet 
perfectly controlled nature, and it is thine to control 
nature." Every famine that visits distant lands 
voices to man the call : " Remember that it is your 
fault, for humanity has not yet been so united that 
the poverty of the East can be remedied from the 
abundance of the West." Every war that rages, 
and blights with its fury smiling plains, is an accusa- 



RELIGION IN THE HOME 



tion, for it shows that men have not yet learned the 
lesson that they are more than brutes ; that they 
have a common goal and should be united by a 
common love. 

In this sense there is punishment, and suf- 
fering may be the guise in which punishment 
vests itself, but there is for every grief a compensa- 
tion. Why, how cold would be the world, were it 
not for those hours of struggle ; how chill and selfish 
would be the human heart, were it not for the sym- 
pathy that is called forth from it by the sight of 
agony and distress ! It is not true that sympathy is 
selfish. Schopenhauer is wrong when he claims that 
the mother's love is egotism ; and the tear we weep 
at the sight of undeserved, and the sigh we heave at 
the knowledge of deserved ills, are but projections 
of our own selves into the place of those sufferers. 
Such degradation of the highest cannot be allowed. 
Sympathy is the richest flower, the ripest fruit of the 
human heart. 

RELIGION IN THE HOME. 

Theodore Cuyler, D.D. 

TN the first place, make your home attractive. Put 
into it every adornment that you can honestly af- 
ford. Books, musical instruments, and pictures are 
good investments ; but nothing will pay better than a 
bright open fire in the sitting-room. It makes a cheer- 
ful rallying-place for the whole family. Ned will not 
be so anxious to run off to the theatre or to the bill- 
iard rooms, and Mary will not be so hungry for the 



io8 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



opera or the ball-room ; they will be more easily held 
fast to a warm glowing heartshrine. Around that 
fireside you, father, ought to spend as many evenings 
as possible. The music of your daughter's piano 
ought to be sweeter to you than the screechings of 
any imported prima donna. A pleasant game with 
your children, or a good romp with them, or a half- 
hour with them over their lessons, will make them 
love you the more, and will banish the cares that 
over-loaded you during the day. To have such a 
home, you must make it. The husband that forsakes 
his household for his club, or any other haunt, and a 
wife who lives in a constant round of outside engage- 
ments, do not deserve to have a home; and from it 
their children will soon be glad to escape. It is idle 
for you to forbid your children to attend places of 
amusement if you provide no innocent, wholesome 
recreation for them. A Christian father of my ac- 
quaintance has a music-room in his house; and an- 
other one has a billiard-table at which he plays with 
his own boys. When two young people united with 
my church, their father said to me, " I have always 
anchored my children at home, and now I see the 
fruits of it. When boys and girls drift from their 
homes, they commonly fetch up on the lee-shore of 
ruin. " 

Remember that for the religion of your household 
you are chiefly responsible. Sunday-schools are 
admirable institutions ; but their original object was 
to reach the children who had no religious instruc- 
tion at home. They were never intended to release 



RELIGION IN THE HOME 



IO9 



Christian parents from the obligations which God 
lays upon them. All the Sunday-schools in the 
world could never have done for me what my godly 
mother did— in my early rural home. Books for 
children were scarce sixty years ago ; and my juve- 
nile literature for Sunday was the Bible, " Pilgrim's 
Progress," and " The New England Primer." The 
Primer contained its doggerel rhymes, its picture and 
story of John Rogers the martyr at the stake, and 
the Westminster Catechism. That Catechism ground 
into my memory has been my compend of theology 
and sheet-anchor of orthodoxy to this day, and to its 
form of sound words I have held thenceforth with as 
tight a grip as a Churchman holds to his Prayer- 
Book, or a Scotch Highlander to the plaid of his 
clan. God's Word thoroughly learned, Bunyan and 
the Catechism were the dairy that supplied the 
"sincere milk" of our childhood ; it was fed to us by 
a praying, loving mother's hand. Has a half-century 
of boasted progress made any improvement on that 
strong diet ? Is one hour on the Sabbath in a school 
any substitute for your wholesome instruction of 
your children in Divine things all the week ? 

The most effective religious influence you exert 
upon your sons and daughters does not come from 
the books you teach them, but from the example 
you set before them. Your character streams into 
your children ; it enters through their eyes and 
through their ears every hour. How quick they are 
to imitate! No photographic plate is more sensi- 
tive to the images which lodge there. Your irrita- 



no 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



tions irritate them ; your dissimulations make them 
tricky and deceitful; your malicious gossip sets " their 
teeth on edge." If you talk "money-money," they will 
conclude that the chief end of life is to get rich. If 
you prefer the play-house to prayer-meeting, they 
will become lovers of pleasure more than lovers of 
God. If you set a decanter on your table, your 
boys will sip their first wine-glasses there. If you 
give your child a shilling for the toy-shop or a place 
of amusement, and only a penny for the contribu- 
tion-box, you teach them that self-indulgence is a 
dozen times more important than Christian benevo- 
lence. If you live for the world your children may 
die in worldliness and be lost forever. Not more 
surely do you provide the clothes for their bodies 
than you weave the habits of their lives and the 
mind-garments that they will be wearing after you are 
dead. As clothes are made stitch by stitch, so you 
weave their characters by numberless little things 
and by your unconscious influence. The Christian or 
un-Christian atmosphere of every house is created 
by the parents. 

Outbreaks of passion have a terrible influence on 
your children. A very cultured gentleman of my 
acquaintance pleads as his excuse when he gets 
enraged, " I can't help it ; my father was just so, his 
boys are all so. We cannot live together in peace ; 
we never did. We are all possessed of the devil." 
What a penalty the living sons are paying for the 
sin of him who first brought that " devil " into the 
household ! Where there is a profession of piety 



RELIGION IN THE HOME 



III 



behind all such volcanic exhibitions, what disgust 
for religion must be excited in the young hearts 
that witness them ! 

While I would not underrate the influence of the 
father — for good or for evil — yet it is mainly the 
mother who controls the home and imparts to it 
its prevailing atmosphere. Susannah Wesley's hand 
rings all the Methodist-church bells around the 
globe. Commonly it is true that " like mother like 
many If the mother is frivolous, prayerless and 
fashion-loving, and careless of the spiritual influ- 
ence of her children, the whole home-atmosphere 
feels the taint. As well try to raise oranges in 
Greenland as expect to find much early piety under 
that roof. The downward pull of the mother's in- 
fluence through the week is apt to be too strong for 
the upward pull of the best preaching or teaching 
on the Sabbath. On the other hand, if she does 
her utmost to make the religion of Jesus attractive 
to her family, if she is watchful of every opportunity 
to lead them Christward, if she follows up the effect 
of the Sabbath Gospel by the more powerful influ- 
ence of home Gospel, there is almost a certainty 
that God will send His converting grace into that 
household. Richard Cecil, the great London 
preacher, says that he tried to be an infidel when 
he was a youth, but he could not gainsay or resist 
his mothers beautiful piety. He tells us that ". She 
used to talk to me and weep as she talked. I flung 
out of the house with an oath, but I cried, too, when 
I had got out into the street. Sympathy is the 



112 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



powerful engine of a mother." Yes, and if all 
mothers were but fervent in prayer and winsome in 
their everyday religion we should behold what 
Dr. Bushnell calls the " out-populating power of the 
Christian stock." The Church in the house would 
feed the Church at the communion-table in God's 
house. 

There are two kinds of Christianity in the home. 
One is a pious sham ; the other is a solid reality. 
One parent prays for the conversion of his family, 
and another sets them an example of money-wor- 
ship, or fast living — and even cracks jokes, talks poli- 
tics and gives Sunday dinners after the most solemn 
sermons in the sanctuary. The other parent not 
only prays for the conversion of his and her children, 
but aims to live them towards Christ. The conver- 
sation of the fireside, the books selected for their 
reading, the amusements chosen for their recreation, 
the society that is invited, and the aims set before 
them, all bear in one way, and that the right way. 
It is in the power of every parent to help, or also 
to sadly hinder the salvation of their offspring. 
" Chips of the old block " are most of our children, 
after all. Then how vitally important is it that the 
old blocks be sound timber! To train up a family 
wisely and for the Lord requires more sagacity 
than to write a book, and more grace than to preach 
a sermon. On the preaching in the home depends 
the extension of the Church, and the safety of the 
commonwealth. May God help all parents to fulfill 
their high and holy trusteeship ! 



CHRIST AND OTHER MASTERS 



113 



CHRIST AND OTHER MASTERS. 



Simon J. McPherson, D.D. 



F course, without power to realize it, the high- 



^-^ est of ideals may only cheapen us into the most 
chimerical of visionaries. Just here is often heard 
the sneering cry : " Hell is paved with good inten- 
tions." But the sane idealist retorts: " Nay, much 
of hell may be paved with bad performances, but 
most of it is the bottomless pit of lost or low 
intentions." The chief danger is lest we waste a 
rare ideal, or keep a vile one. No man can be 
better than his own best intention ; the end in view 
must determine the aim ; and the aim will inevitably 
mold the character. 

Contrast the ideals of some acknowledged heroes 
of history with that of Jesus. 

We may begin with Buddha, the boasted " Light 
of Asia." His ideal was Nirvana, the vacuous 
abyss of unconsciousness — concrete nothingness. It 
was the sheerest despair of individual life. Yet 
even this examinate aim, sought through desertion 
of his own wife and child and through prolonged 
gazing downward upon his own person, Gautama 
could gain only for himself. Except by impotent 
example, he was unable to lift others toward it. 
The wretched murder of thought, passion, emotion, 
even conscience, they must severally achieve by 
their unaided powers. 

Then there is Confucius, the other great agnostic 
of antiquity. His ideal was found in the naturalis- 

Lamps of the Temple— 0 




ii4 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



tic data of ethics without any intrusion, as he would 
have said, without any sanction, as we say, of the 
supernatural. His view was neither wider nor 
higher than this world. His system may be highly 
admirable in point of moral precept — horizontal 
religion — but fatally deficient in faith toward God — 
perpendicular religion. Every commandment of 
that second table of the Decalogue, which defines 
man's relations with his fellow-man — thou shalt not 
kill, lust, steal, lie, covet, and, above all, thou shalt 
honor thy father — is said to be included in the civil 
statutes of China, and even in the examinations for 
its civil service. But of the prior table, which ex- 
presses man's due relations to God, not even the 
first commandment is recognized. Confucians, while 
required to be moralists by profession, are permitted 
to be atheists, if they will. What is the result ? In 
this republic at least, which formally excluded Mon- 
gols as a nuisance, it should be enough to answer : 
China is the result. It has moral theory, but 
scarcely moral living ; it has marvelous industry, 
but little wholesome laughter or ample heroism, 
because it worships dead ancestors instead of the 
living God. Agnostics may learn how their ideals 
will actually work by studying the long histories 
of Buddhism or Confucianism. 

But come westward to Socrates. His ideal was to 
teach men virtue by making them wise. We agree 
with him that knowledge is power ; but, unless re- 
strained by righteousness, inspired by holy love and 
propelled by the impulse to do one's best, it is 



CHRIST AND OTHER MASTERS I I 5 



power for evil and not for good. Like Alcibiades, 
it may lack both the means and the motive to live 
heroically. 

Now recall Christ's contrasted ideal. When he 
was leaving the world, He said, " All power is given 
unto me in heaven and in earth." When Pilate asked 
Him if He was a King, He replied: " To this end 
was I born, and for this cause came I into the 
world, that I should bear witness to the truth." In 
describing His method He declared : " Greater love 
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life 
for his friends." And His friends He identified in 
such gracious words as these : " The Son of Man is 
come to seek and save the lost." 

Power, truth and love, not unselfish only, but 
wholly self-sacrificing, were his distinctive character- 
istics. His gift was no such philanthropy as con- 
sists in a series of expedients to relieve men. He 
came to offer merciful power, adequate to the com- 
plete salvation of manhood. His achievement was 
to reveal the whole truth about humanity's pathetic 
condition in the present, and marvelous possibilities 
in the future, and, by his mighty love, communicated 
in his own birth, life, death and resurrection, to har- 
monize the Eternal Father with his immortal chil- 
dren. Is there any higher ideal imaginable than 
to secure the perpetual welfare of manhood 
through revelation of God's forgiving fatherhood 
by means of His own atoning brotherhood, incar- 
nating power, truth, love, grace, and willing self- 
sacrifice ? 



u6 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



THE CLAIMS OF THE WORLD AND THE 
RIGHTS OF GOD. 



HE claims of the world and the rights of God 



A are often put in the balance, but they who have 
the spirit of the world in them regard the claims of 
the world without weighing the rights of God. 
They are guided by what everybody does, what 
everybody says, and what everybody thinks. These 
three considerations govern multitudes who have 
not ventured to renounce their faith. What does 
this mean ? It means that their heart is in the 
world. " Where your treasure is, there your heart 
will be also." Moreover, they live by the spirit of 
the world as far as they dare. W T e talk about 
society. And what is society? It is a sort of 
mutual agreement among rich people to meet to- 
gether, to eat together, to drink together, to dress 
alike, to give and exchange invitations, to go to 
theatres, entertainments, bails, parties, amusements. 
And underneath all this we have misery, hunger, 
poverty, sin. How heartless, how careless? I am 
always afraid of speaking of these things lest I 
should seem to be rigorous. Nothing is more 
easy than to call a man rigorous. It is the best 
stone to throw. But take the Epistle of St. John, 
" Love not the world, neither the things that are in 
the world, for if any man love the world, the love of 
the Father is not in him." Apply these words to 
society, the play, the theatre. If that which is 



Cardinal Manning. 




THE CLAIMS OF THE WORLD 117 



represented on the stage is modest in itself, so far it 
is innocent. If the fact of going to the theatre does 
you no harm — though a great many don't know how 
much harm it does — well, then, you must judge for 
yourselves; but there is this thought: What is the 
harm the whole system does ? You don't know, 
and none of us will know till the Day of Judgment. 
Weigh these things well before you call me rigor- 
ous. Once more, there is a great deal of the pride of 
life in dress. There is a departure from the injunc- 
tion of the Apostle in the dress of Christian women, 
and in two points especially — costliness and mod- 
esty. Is this the spirit of God or of this world? 
Once more, in books. I am sorry to say this evil is 
growing. There was a time when books that are 
now to be seen on the tables of drawing-rooms 
would never have come over the thresholds of our 
families. And I am sorry to say — or rather I am 
glad to say — that the greater part is wafted from 
abroad — though imitators of these foreign writers 
are now springing up at home. We also see the world 
attempting to pollute the motives of good-doing; 
we see charity in masquerade. If people will wor- 
ship fashion, don't let them bring it into the church, 
into its devotions, into its alms-giving. I have 
often thought that there is both a pious worldliness 
and a worldly piety. Pray God that may both dis- 
appear and be absorbed in a higher spirit. Of this 
worship of fashion I have said enough. I have only 
this to add — avoid the world to the utmost of your 
power. You will ask me, perhaps, what is the world ? 



u8 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



I will ask you, what is your world ? It does not 
mean the continent of Europe — it does not mean 
the metropolitan district. I suppose your world is 
your family, your relations, your friends, kind peo- 
ple with whom you have been in contact in times 
past, and arc still and may be in the future. And 
you think this world of yours very harmless and in- 
nocent, and I have no doubt it is. But I will say 
to you, limit even that. There can be nothing less 
dignified than this inviting, immortalizing, and hav- 
ing the worldly craze to have your table covered 
with invitation cards. And yet how many there are 
who live entirely for this — who have a restless im- 
patient desire to know everybody, to be morbid 
everywhere, to have all manner of people at their 
house. All this is needless, excessive, mischievous, 
and dangerous. It can hardly be without some 
venial sins, and where venial sins are, we do know 
what may occur some day. A lax life is a sad life ; 
a strict life is a peaceful life, and the peace of con- 
science springing from a strict life is the peace of 
God, which " passeth all understanding." We must 
be in the world until God calls us out of it, but of 
the world we need not be. If we are united to our 
Divine Master the spirit of God dwells in us, and it 
matters not what may be our lot in life, however 
heavy its duty, how close and perilous even in its 
temptations, for God will not forsake us. He will 
fulfill His promise : " When thou passeth through 
the waters I will be with thee, and the rivers shall 
not overflow thee, and when thou walkest in the 



THE CLAIMS OF THE WORLD II9 



fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the 
flame kindle within thee." 

A rich man is a demigod in this world, something 
to be admired, to be looked up to. And the rich 
have influence, and can do all manner of things that 
the poor cannot do. And why? Because the world 
worships riches, forgetting that our Lord has said : 
"Woe unto you rich, for you have received your 
consolation." There is another world — worship — 
the worship of great names, titles, privileges. And 
what are they ? They sometimes represent great deeds 
performed by the ancestors who now bear them or 
possess them in days long gone by. They are to be 
respected still, but it is very humbling to see the 
way people will run after a name or after a title, and 
how sometimes their mouths are full of the names 
of great people whom they may have seen once and 
would like to meet again ; and in the meantime they 
talk of them. What a littleness is this ! Then 
again, any one who prospers in the world, the world 
flocks to. You will see some men who, starting life 
with nothing, gradually acquire possessions, rise in 
society, and they are followed and flattered, not for 
the low, vulgar purpose cf getting money, but from a 
strange fascination which makes the world worship 
them, forgetting this, that those who go before a fair 
wind and a flowing tide often only come faster upon 
the rocks. Have we not all in our life seen the fall 
and the ruin of prosperous men ; have we not had ex- 
amples of the uncertainty and instability of worldly 
prosperity ? And those of whom the world thinks 



120 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



least are those to be most revered, namely, those who 
are afflicted. " For as many as I love I rebuke and 
chastise." How utterly contradictory are those 
words of the worldly worship of the rich and the 
great and the prosperous ! 



THE SECRET OF GOD'S HARVEST-FIELDS. 

W. C. Gannett. 
JT is the secret of all God's harvest-fields, the way 
in which He hoards the gains of all His work from 
waste. . . . In us all, and all through life, the 
secret of the harvest is the same. The laws of the 
seasons reign in us. " Herein is the Father glorified, 
that we bear much fruit." The course of life is a 
thousand trifles, then some crisis, — and again a thou- 
sand trifles and a crisis ; nothing but green leaves un- 
der common sun and shadow, and then a storm or a 
rare June day. And far more than the storm or the 
perfect day the common sun and common shadow 
do to make the autumn rich. It is the " every days " 
that count. They must be made to tell, or the years 
have failed. To tell; for that thought and feeling 
must become action, and action habit, and habit 
turn to principle and character. And if, for some of 
us, and sometimes for all of us, action cannot mean 
doing, then remember bearing, too, is action, often 
its hardest part. 

I am not eager, bold or strong, — 

All that is past ! 
I am ready not to do, 

At last— at last ! 



THE SPIRIT OF OUR AGE 



121 



When that verse comes into the psalm of life, as, 
sooner or later, it must come, let us remember that 
not-to-do well is a noble well-doing. But either by 
doing or by bearing we must act, in order to harvest 
anything. Action is to thought and feeling what the 
leaf is to the crude sap ; then of action habit is the 
blossom, and of habit character is the fruit. Char- 
acter is the concentrated result of life, its organized 
deposit, its harvest in us, and the seed of after-life. 

Between the bearings and the doings, our years 
are passing fast. Death is predetermined in our 
frames as in that of the leaves. From ten to twenty 
we hardly know it ; from twenty to thirty we know 
but little care ; at thirty we begin to care, for al- 
ready June is well-nigh past ! Are we leafing yet? 
Are we only leafing? Or are we so leafing that 
life's autumn shall find us rich in pleasant fruit. Are 
we ripening seed? 

THE SPIRIT OF OUR AGE. 

Canon Liddon. 

TT is natural to us to think that the days in which 
we live are wiser and better than any before, and 
that in throwing our thoughts without restraint into 
the main currents of the hour we are doing the best 
we can with our short span of life. And yet we 
might observe that many a past generation has cher- 
ished this notion of an absolute value attaching to 
the thought and temper of its day, while we, as we 
look back on it, with the aid of a larger experience, 



122 LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 

can see that it was the victim of an illusory enthu- 
siasm. When we analyse the ingredients that go to 
make up the spirit of the time, of any one phase of 
time, and when we observe that, notwithstanding its 
stout assertions of a right to rule, it melts away be- 
fore our very eyes like the fashions of a lady's dress, 
into shapes and modes which contradict, with equal 
self-confidence, its former self, we may hesitate before 
we listen to it as if it were a prophet, or make a fet- 
ish of it, as though it had within it a concealed 
divinity. The spirit of any generation may have, 
must have, in it some elements to recommend it ; but 
assuredly it has also other and very different elements, 
and the question is whence do they come, and 
whither are they drifting ? All that is moving, inter- 
esting, exciting in the world of ideas, in the succes- 
sive conceptions of the meaning and purpose of life 
that flit across the mental sky, is not necessarily 
from, nor does it necessarily tend towards, the Source 
of good. The mere movement of the ages does not 
in itself imply a progress from lower to higher truth, 
from darkness to light ; movement is possible in 
more directions than one. " Brethren," exclaims an 
apostle to some of his flock, to whom every claimant 
for speculative sympathy seems to have been wel- 
come, " brethren, believe not every spirit ; but try 
the spirits whether they are of God. . . . Every 
spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in 
the flesh is of God : and every spirit that confesseth 
not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of 
God." 



PAUL, THE HERO OF HIS DAY 



123 



The test of the true worth of the spirit of our day — 
of the spirit which rules our own thoughts and lives 
— is the saying, " He shall glorify Me." All that 
wins for the Divine Redeemer more room in the 
thoughts and hearts of men ; all that secures for Him 
the homage of obedient and disciplined wills ; all 
that draws from the teachings of the past and the 
examples of the present new motives for doing Him 
the honor which is His eternal due, may be safely 
presumed to come from a Source higher than any in 
this passing world, and to have in it the promise of 
lasting happiness and peace. 



OOK at the Apostle Paul himself. Look at his 



^ severe, mathematical conscience, his intensity of 
zeal, and his ruthless temper. He could not have 
said : " I must go forty days and forty nights into 
the wilderness that I may prepare myself to be a 
successful apostle." Having once felt the inspira- 
tion of divine love, he thought in himself, " All 
these are enemies, and must be slain or restrained ;" 
and he slew them. Instead of being a harsh, gash- 
ing man, a man of violent tongue, a man of mur- 
derous hand, a man without lenity or charity of 
judgment, he became the very model of all that is 
delicate in sweetness, in gentleness, in forbearance, 
and all that is cherishing in the differences that ex- 
ist between man and man. And what a multitu- 



PAUL, THE HERO OF HIS DAY. 



Henry Ward Beecher, 




124 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



dinous nature his was! If by the grace of God he 
could fight that battle in himself without expecta- 
tion of popularity, without idea of increase in 
power among the multitude, simply because Christ 
desired him to be like Himself, is not that heroic? 
There was but one hero in Paul's day, inside and 
out ; and Paul was the man. No training, no school, 
academic or other, no philosophy, none of all the 
men that drew the sword to carve their way to 
fame, could be compared with him for a moment. 
Others were but luminous dust that fills the air 
when the sun shines ; but he lifted himself up into 
grandeur. Disfigured, probably, of body, sore-eyed, 
contemptible in speech, among men that esteemed 
all these qualities most highly, Paul lifted himself 
up into a stature so high that two thousand years 
have not yet put it down below the horizon. 



revealed word, the word written on the heart, 
the voice of conscience, the common consent of man- 
kind. There are also special revelations and voices. 
Those who have ears to hear will always be hearing 
God's voice. There come to us all hours which we 
may well call hours of revelation. They often come 
after great sorrow, or when in the midst of sore per- 
plexity, or after some experience of humiliation or 
disappointment, during convalescence after illness, 



GOD SPEAKS IN MANY WAYS. 



Theodore P. Munger. 




many ways. There is the 



GOD SPEAKS IN MANY WAYS 12$ 



or in some deliverance like the spared life of wife or 
child, or after great weariness, or when in some deep 
solitude of forest or city. Oftenest, perhaps, they 
come in w he night and after deep sleep. The Spirit 
of God comes to us. Why should it not ? It is here 
seeking us — why should it not find us ? These are 
the occasions and conditions in which it steals past 
the sentries of worldly habit and comes close to us. 
How clear now are all things ! How God and duty 
stand out ! How the world shrinks, and how eter- 
nity opens ! How tender our feelings ! What a 
sense of love and pity for all men ! what yearning 
desires to be good and true and pure ! what a shame 
for all our evil ! what an opening of the whole 
nature to God ! what a sense of the reality of God ! 
When such hours come to us, we are to obey in a 
special sense. These hours are not for our comfort 
merely, but for opportunity. Now ply all the 
forces of your nature ; make your resolutions. 
Now break forever with the evil habit; cast off 
the entangling alliance ; pluck out your evil eye. 
Now take the stand you had not dared to take. 
Resolve to see with the light you now have, to keep 
and to show the tender human heart you now feel 
beating in your bosom. This hour of clear vision 
will not last ; use it to the utmost. You will gain 
and do more in these moments than in years of 
ordinary life. " Spread wide the skirts of thy 
mantle when the heavens rain gold." The heavenly 
visitation may be long in repeating itself. There is 
a fable of one who waited and watched at the gate 



126 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



of Paradise for a thousand years, but slept a 
moment, when the gate was opened and shut again 
for ages. There is constancy in the Divine charac- 
ter, but not in the Divine opportunity. The Spirit 
is always in the world, but it cannot always find 
access to us. When it does — quickening, opening, 
pointing — then we are to transact the soul's busi- 
ness; repent, choose, decide, and take our course. 

It would help us greatly if we should teach our- 
selves to remember that all high duties — all life, in- 
deed — touches the supernatural world, or what we 
call such. Rather call it the spiritual world. There 
lies the power and efficiency, the quickening energy, 
of all that we do. We should never forget that all 
our work lies within this world and touches it at 
every moment. The servants did not know the 
power that was present as they gathered the water- 
jars and brought the water ; but Mary knew in part, 
Jesus knew perfectly, that God's power stands ready 
to break into the present order at any time. It is 
always at hand, ready to work its transforming 
miracles upon the elements of earth. It can 
change toil into heavenly rest, and turn the 
stones of earth into bread. Sorrow, weakness, 
trouble, our very faults and defects — these it re- 
moulds and transforms into spiritual qualities and 
powers. The whole trend of things in creation is 
from lower to higher, from coarser to finer ; and 
Christ is but changing water into wine, the poor and 
the evil into the rich and the good. The main 
thing is to see and know this — to throw ourselves 



THREE THINGS FOR CHRISTIANS 



127 



into the great plan and current of nature and of 
grace, and suffer them to lift us up and bear us on 
in their own high directions. We are not here in 
the world merely to pass through it, but to be 
changed in it — from flesh to spirit, from sin to 
righteousness. We bear the image of the earthly ; 
we must also bear the image of the heavenly. 



THREE THINGS FOR CHRISTIANS TO DO. 

C. H. Spurgeon. 

'"THERE are three things for God's people to do. 
* The first is, to be happy. Any man can sing when 
his cup is full of delights ; the believer alone has 
songs when waters of a bitter cup are wrung out to 
him. Any sparrow can chirp in the daylight ; it is 
only the nightingale that can sing in the dark. 
Children of God, whenever the enemies seem to pre- 
vail over you, whenever the serried ranks of the foe 
appear sure of victory, then begin to sing. Your 
victory will come with your song. It is a very puz- 
zling thing to the devil to hear saints sing when he 
sets his foot on them. He cannot make it out ; the 
more he oppresses them, the more they rejoice. 

Let us resolve to be all the merrier when the ene- 
my dreams that we are utterly routed. The more 
opposition, the more we will rejoice in the Lord ; 
the more discouragement, the more confidence. 
Splendid was the courage of Alexander when they 
told him there were hundreds of thousands of Per- 
sians, " Yet," he said, "one butcher fears not myr- 



128 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



iads of sheep." " Ah ! " said another, " when the 
Persians draw their bows, their arrows are so numer- 
ous that they darken the sun." " It will be fine to 
fight in the shade," cried the hero. Oh, friends, we 
know whom we have believed, and we are sure of 
triumph ! Let us not think for a single second, it 
the odds against us are ten thousand to one, that 
this is a hardship ; rather let us wish that they were 
a million to one, that the glory of the Lord might be 
all the greater in the conquest which is sure. 

The next duty is fearlessness. " Fear thou not." 
What! not a little? No, " Fear thou not." But 
surely I may show some measure of trembling? No, 
" Fear thou not." 

Tie that knot tight about the throat of all your 
unbelief. " Fear thou not;" neither this day, nor 
any day of thy life. When fear comes in, drive it 
away ; give it no space. If God rests in His love, 
and if God sings, what canst thou have to do with 
fear? Have you never known passengers on board 
ship, when the weather was rough, comforted by the 
calm behavior of the captain ? One simple-minded 
soul said to his friend, " I am sure there is no cause 
for fear, {ox I heard the captain whistling." Surely, 
if the captain is at ease, and with him is all the re- 
sponsibility, the passenger may be still more at 
peace. If the Lord Jesus at the helm is singing, let 
us not be fearing. Let us have done with every 
timorous accent. 

Lastly, let us be zealous. " Let not thine hands 
be slack." Now is the time when every Christian 



LIFE, DEATH, IMMORTALITY 1 29 



should do more for God than ever. Let us plan 
great things for God, and let us expect great things 
from God. " Let not thine hands be slack." Now is 
the hour for redoubled prayers and labors. Since 
the adversaries are busy, let us be busy also. If they 
think they shall make a full end of us, let us resolve 
to make a. full end of their falsehoods and delusions. 
I think every Christian man should answer the chal- 
lenge of the adversaries of Christ by working double 
tides, by giving more of his substance to the cause 
of God, by living more for the glory of God, by be- 
ing more exact in his obedience, more earnest in his 
efforts, and more importunate in his prayers. " Let 
not thine hands be slack" in any one part of holy 
service. 

Would God that all were on Christ's side out of 
this great assembly ! Oh that you would come to 
Jesus, and trust Him, and then live for Him in the 
midst of this crooked and perverse generation ! The 
Lord will be with us, Amen. 



LIFE, DEATH, IMMORTALITY. 

Henri Frederic Amiel. 

Y ESTERDAY the landscape was clear and distinct, 
the air bracing, the sea bright and gleaming and 
of an ashy-blue color. There were beautiful effects of 
beach, sea, and distance; and dazzling tracks of gold 
upon the waves, after the sun had sunk below the 
bands of vapor drawn across the middle sky, and 
before it had disappeared in the mists of the sea 

Lamps of the Temple — 9 



13° 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



horizon. The place was very full. All Scheveningen 
and The Hague, the village and the capital, had 
streamed out onto the terrace. The orchestra played 
some Wagner, some Auber, and some waltzes. What 
was all the world doing? Simply enjoying life. A 
thousand thoughts wandered through my brain. I 
thought how much history it had taken to make 
what I saw possible; Judaea, Egypt, Greece, Ger- 
many, Gaul ; all the centuries from Moses to Napo- 
leon, and all the zones from Batavia to Guiana, had 
united in the formation of this gathering. The in- 
dustry, the science, the art, the geography, the com- 
merce, the religion of the whole human race, are re- 
peated in every human combination ; and what we see 
before our own eyes at any given moment is inexpli- 
cable without reference to all that has ever been. 
This interlacing of the ten thousand threads which 
Necessity weaves into the production of one single 
phenomenon is a stupefying thought. One feels 
oneself in the presence of Law itself — allowed a 
glimpse of the mysterious workshop of Nature. The 
ephemeral perceives the eternal. What matters the 
brevity of the individual span, seeing that the gen- 
erations, the centuries, and the worlds themselves are 
but occupied forever with the ceaseless reproduction 
of the hymn of life, in all the hundred thousand 
modes and variations which make up the universal 
symphony? The universe represents the infinite 
wealth of the spirit seeking in vain to exhaust all 
possibilities, and the goodness of the Creator, who 
would fain share with the created all that sleeps 



HOW TO BE INSIGNIFICANT 



within the limbo of Omnipotence. To contemplate 
and adore, to receive and give back, to have uttered 
one's note and moved one's grain of sand, is all which 
is expected from such insects as we are ; it is enough 
to give motive and meaning to our fugitive appari- 
tion in existence. . . . After the concert, when the 
human tumult had disappeared, the peace of the 
starry heaven shone out resplendent, and the dreamy 
glimmer of the Milky Way was only answered by 
the distant murmur of the ocean. 



HOW TO BE INSIGNIFICANT. 

Fred A. Atkins. 

THE world is full of insignificant people. They 
are born, they go to school, they work, they eat, 
they sleep, they talk — rather frivolously, they live — 
very aimlessly — and one day they die, and the world 
is not much the poorer because of their disappear- 
ance. A few men struggle to the front, rise beyond 
the hum-drum level of the crowd, and make their 
voices heard above the common clamour. But as 
for the rest they are insignificant. Why? Because 
it is the easiest thing in the world. 

Probably the surest way to be insignificant is to 
inherit wealth. It is generally the greatest possible 
curse for a man to begin life in opulence. It ties 
his hands, lowers his ambition, and narrows his sym- 
pathies. He is fettered by fashion, and bound 
tightly by the conventional prejudices of society. 
He will not succeed in journalism, for he cannot bend 



132 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



his back to begin with the daily drudgery. He will 
hardly consent to soil his hands in trade : and as for 
science and art, why should he endure the long toil 
and severe training of the student when he can oc- 
cupy the pleasurable position of the patron ? Ex- 
cept in a few remarkable cases, the young man who 
enters on life's tragedy to the music of jingling gold 
plays an insignificant part, far from danger, and 
therefore far from honor. My brother, be su- 
premely thankful if you are thrown entirely on your 
own resources. Many of the men who have won the 
highest success in commerce, and science, and art, 
many of the boldest reformers, most brilliant writers, 
and most forceful orators, have been men who com- 
menced life without a penny in their pockets. One 
of the best men I have ever known once thought- 
lessly sneered at a young journalist because he lacked 
the supposed advantage of a University education. 
He did not know that the successful journalists in 
London at this hour who can put B.A. after their 
names could be comfortably counted on the fingers 
of one hand. The smartest journalist in the me- 
tropolis to-day had no schooling after he reached 
twelve years of age, except what he gained by 
his own unaided efforts. It may seem the strang- 
est paradox, but it is nevertheless a simple undeni- 
able fact, that poverty is often one of the greatest 
blessings a man can have in beginning his career. It 
nerves him for the battle, it hinders self-indulgence, 
and it is a sure preventive of laziness. 

Another certain method of acquiring insignifi- 



HOW TO BE INSIGNIFICANT 



133 



cance is a love of ease. "Anything for a quiet life" 
is the motto which has ruined the prospects of 
thousands. The man who is content to exist — the 
man who says that work is an excellent thing, and 
he would rather enjoy a short spell of it, but 
he feels that " to work between meals is not good 
for the digestion," — that man will always be miser- 
ably small and contemptibly insignificant. You 
have got to climb the ladder of life — there is no lift to 
take you up. There are prizes to be had, but you 
must win them — they will not drop into your hands. 
Do you wish to avoid insignificance, and rise to 
some nobler height of work and character and at- 
tainment ? Then you must be ready not only to 
take opportunities but to make them. You must 
be strenuous in effort, dogged in perseverance, indom- 
itable in courage, and cheerful and alert in mind. 
When Cromwell was asked to postpone an enter- 
prise and " wait till the iron was hot," he bravely 
replied that he would make the iron hot by striking 
it. That is the dauntless spirit we want today — 
the spirit which laughs at difficulty, and is not to be 
turned aside from its ambition by all the amiable 
warnings of prudence or timidity. There is one 
hymn which is sometimes sung at revival meetings 
— thank God we do not hear it so often now. It 
begins — 

Oh, to be nothing, nothing! 

Now, if that is your ambition, you can easily 
gratify it. Nothingness is soon achieved. But 
surely no young man with a healthy mind and a 



134 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



Christlike spirit will be deceived by this hideous 
mockery and caricature of true humility. To want 
to be nothing is an insult to the God who made you. 
Was it worth while bringing you into the world to 
whine and cant about "being nothing?" Rouse 
yourself and think ! God has surrounded you with 
a wealth of privileges and an infinitude of priceless 
blessings. You inherit all the wisdom and genius 
and benevolence of the ages — riches that are vast, 
golden, immortal. You are placed within reach of 
the noblest possibilities ; you have all the help and 
advantage which come of dwelling in a Christian 
and civilized land. You live in an age when the 
zeal and ardor and strength of young men are greatly 
in demand, and when the opportunities for usefulness 
are singularly favorable ; and yet in the mean- 
est, laziest, most spiritless fashion you ask to be 
" nothing, nothing." Have done, once for all, with 
this cowardly and characterless whimpering. Be 
something. Be a msmf Shake off your dull sloth 
and rise to a nobler life. Do you murmur about 
the fierce and relentless competition? There is no 
competition at the top. The crowd is at the bot- 
tom ; but look ahead, battle forward, fight your way 
against every difficulty, valiantly overcome every 
obstacle, and by the time you have climbed half- 
way to success you will find that the throng which 
once pressed around you begins to thin and disap- 
pear. And when by skill and industry, faith and 
fortitude, pluck and perseverance, you have attained 
the height you set your young heart on reaching, 



HOW TO BE INSIGNIFICANT 



135 



you will discover that there is no competition there 
— you will then be able to dictate your own terms, 
and claim the adequate reward of honest, skillful, 
earnest work. 

Yet another most fruitful cause of insignificance 
is what I should call " time-frittering." Some 
months ago several of the most prominent ministers 
in New York were persuaded to give their views on 
"The Best Use of Leisure," for the guidance of 
young men. I am not sure that there is any topic 
of much greater importance than this, for you can 
generally tell the character of a man with almost in- 
fallible accuracy, by the way in which he uses his 
leisure hours. Time-frittering is undoubtedly the 
besetting sin of the young men of today. 
Thousands of fellows turn with horror from actual 
dissipation. But their virtue is of a negative and 
therefore of a very worthless kind. They abstain 
from evil, but they never do any good. The worst 
and most costly extravagance of which you 
can be guilty is to throw away your evenings. They 
are golden opportunities for which you are responsi- 
ble, and of which you should make the best and 
highest use. One of the most popular of our 
writers and orators was once asked how he managed 
to get through such a prodigious amount of work. 
" Simply by organizing my time," he replied. It is 
by this invaluable habit of organizing your leisure 
hours that you will be able to " wrestle from life its 
uses and gather from life its beauty." It is wonder- 
ful what may be accomplished by devoting the 



136 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



evenings to some useful study or helpful recreation. 
Earnest and persistent students have learnt several 
languages in the odd hours of a busy career. Never 
be afraid of giving up one or two nights a week to 
your books. " Knowledge is power " all the world 
over, and what you learn will be sure to come in 
useful one day. It is an old saying, but I may re- 
peat it with advantage, that " Time-wasting in 
youth is one of the mistakes which are beyond 
correction." 

My space has filled up all too rapidly, but I must 
go on to mention two more paths to insignificance. 
One is the loss of your good name. A blasted 
reputation will carry you into nothingness at ex- 
press speed. Lose your character and men will 
drop you with stinging promptitude, and you will 
sink into the lowest depths of insignificance. 
Scarcely anybody will want to know you — nobody 
will employ you, and only a few Christ-like souls 
will be ready to lend you a helping hand. We are 
too apt to read the Bible nowadays as if it were an 
old-world story, which has no bearing on the practi- 
cal matters of every-day business. But has it never 
struck you that " a good name is rather to be chosen 
than great riches," even as a worldly investment? 
Punctuality, concentration of effort, ceaseless energy, 
and many other qualifications, will help a man for- 
ward ; but, possessing all these, he may yet be a 
miserable failure if he has not a good name. Char- 
acter stands for a good deal, even in these days of 
fraud and deceit. A band of thieves will want an 



HOW TO BE INSIGNIFICANT 



137 



honest treasurer, and men who are themselves full 
of trickery, will appreciate a sturdy, honest charac- 
ter in others. The young man whose word cannot 
be relied upon, whose honesty is not beyond suspi- 
cion, and whose personal life is not clean, will search 
in vain for a position in the business world to- 
day. Be careful that you never lose your good 
name. It may take you ten or twenty years to gain 
a high and spotless reputation ; but you can easily 
destroy it in ten minutes ; and a man who has once 
proved himself unworthy to be trusted will find it 
an almost hopeless task to win back confidence and 
regard. He may even possess influence, and family 
position, and hosts of friends ; but the way upward 
will be hard and thorny, because he once surrendered 
his reputation. Be on your guard, be watchful and 
vigilant ; let him that thinketh he standeth take 
heed lest he fall. Count your good name as a pos- 
session above price, and by the strong help of 
your Father God, never permit it to be soiled or 
sullied. Honesty is better than brilliance ; purity 
and uprightness are greater than dash and clever- 
ness. 

In closing I may mention one other way in which 
you may become insignificant — it is by turning your 
back on God. You may be decorated with the tinsel 
honors of the world, but your selfish, shrivelled, nar- 
row, little soul will be a daily torment to you. The 
foundation of all true success is an unswerving fidel- 
ity to the highest religious principle. I like to think 
of George Moore — the uncouth Cumberland lad — 



138 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



coming to London with little education, less money, 
and no introduction ; indeed, with nothing but a 
brave heart and a fervent trust in his God. At first he 
met with the keenest disappointments, but his manly 
courage never gave way. He was determined not to 
sink into nothingness and insignificance. He pushed, 
and prayed, and persevered, and the opening soon 
came, as it always does, to vigorous and high-minded 
fellows, and after some years George Moore, the mer- 
chant prince, was giving away money at the rate of 
;£ 16,000 a year. He would not have achieved this if 
he had been a thoughtless, shiftless, lounging ne'er- 
do-well. The great secret of his wonderful success 
was his simple, unaffected piety. Men trusted him 
implicitly because of his genuine godliness. Broth- 
ers, never think for a moment that Christianity is a 
vapid, fastidious sentimental thing. The truest 
heroes have been the truest Christians. Think of 
Paul and Luther and Havelock and Gordon, strong, 
noble, manly souls, unfettered by guile or meanness, 
unfaltering in their transparent sincerity of character, 
and in their unbending loyalty to truth. Believe me, 
nothing will save a man from insignificance so surely 
as a chivalrous upright character, and a simple 
stalwart faith in God. 

Go forth 'mong men, not mailed in scorn, 

But in the armor of a pure intent; 

Great duties are before you, and great aims, 

And whether crowned or crownless when you fall, 

It matters not, so be God's work is done. 



HOPE IN THE MIDST OF POVERTY 1 39 



HOPE IN THE MIDST OF POVERTY. 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

TN the household do not let the incidents of 
poverty or sickness turn out of doors that which 
ought to be the support of both of them — hope. If 
today is cloudy, hope that to-morrow will be 
brighter. If this plan has failed, hope that another 
will succeed. If misfortune is crowding on you, let 
the procession pass, in the hope that the next pro- 
cession will be joyous. There is many a man driven 
by domestic infelicity, or business trouble, or his 
own temperament, till he comes to the verge of the 
question, " To do or not to do." Many a man has 
thought, " Which is the shortest way out of life ?" 
Many a man has gone out of it like a fool, when, if 
he had waited a week longer, he would have been all 
right. Of pressures in the family — especially the 
worst of them all, acute sufferings in behalf of 
others, — a man says, " I could bear it myself ; but 
ah, my wife and children ! I cannot endure the 
prospect." Oh, you coward ! you are going out of 
life to get rid of that, are you ? More than that, I 
appeal to many of you if, now in your days of pros- 
perity you cannot look back to the time when you 
were almost ready to give up the struggle, and say, 
" I am defeated." How many men there are whose 
affairs, after they have toiled successfully till they 
are forty or forty-five years old, become tangled, who 
are in some panic or revulsion, and from whom 
everything is swept away ! It may be that in their 



140 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



unpreparedness their very name is smirched some- 
what ; and they say, " I am not as strong as I used 
to be ; when I could work night and day ; I have lost 
my name and place ; it is too late to begin again ; 
and there is nothing to do but wait and die." Some 
of them dry up. They are like last year's mullein- 
stalks. There is in them no good, no vigor, no hope, 
no anything. Some of them grow pious, and circu- 
late tracts. 

Under all circumstances and conditions, trust God 
and do good. " Verily thou shalt be fed." " Rest 
in the Lord and wait patiently for Him." There is 
a receipt that for thousands of years has been lying 
on the pages of the Bible, and it has never misled 
anybody. In hopefulness, cheerfulness, there is help 
for body and for soul. 



HE word translated followeth here literally means 



to cleave or to cling. And there is a beautiful 
double idea of a twofold relationship expressed in 
that somewhat incongruous form of speech " cleave 
after Thee," the former word giving the idea of 
union and possession, the latter suggesting the other 
idea of search and pursuit. So that the two main cur- 
rents of thought in the psalm are repeated in that 
little phrase ; and we are back again — though with a 
wonderful difference — to the ground tone of the first 
section. There the soul thirsteth ; here " the soul 



FOLLOWING HARD AFTER GOD. 



Alexander Maclaren, M.A., D.D. 




FOLLOWING HARD AFTER GOD 141 



cleaveth after " — both expressive of pursuit, but the 
latter as consequent upon the satisfaction which fol- 
lowed upon the thirst, speaks of a profounder 
possession and of a less sense of want. 

" My soul cleaveth after God." That is to say, 
inasmuch as He is infinite, and this nature of mine is 
incapable of indefinite expansion, each new posses- 
sion of Him which follows upon an enlarged desire will 
open the elastic walls of my heart so that they shall 
enclose a wider space and be capable of holding more 
of God, and therefore I shall possess more. Desire 
expands the heart, possession expands the heart. 
More of God comes when we can hold more of Him, 
and the end of all fruition is the renewed desire after 
further fruition. 

This world's gifts cloy and never satisfy ; God sat- 
isfies and never cloys. And we have, and we shall 
have, if we are His children, the double delight of a 
continual fruition, and a continued desire. So we 
shall ascend, if I may so say, in ever higher and 
higher spirals, which will rise further and draw in 
more closely towards the unreached and unattainable 
Throne of the blessed Himself, " My soul thirsteth;" 
"-My soul is satisfied ;" " my satisfied soul still longs 
and follows." 

And then there is also very beautifully here the 
co-operation and reciprocal action of the seeking soul 
and of the sustaining God. " My soul followeth hard 
after Thee ; Thy right hand upholdeth me." We 
hold and we are held. We hold because we are held, 
and we are held while we hold. We follow, and yet 



142 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



He is with us ; we long, and yet we possess ; 
we pursue, and yet in the very act of pursuit we are 
upheld by His hand. We shall not follow unless He 
holds us up. He will not hold us up unless we fol- 
low. All controversies of grace and freewill are rec- 
onciled and lulled to sleep in these great words: 
" My soul followeth hard after Thee ; Thy right hand 
upholdeth me." 

The soul thus cleaving and following is gifted with 
a prophetic certainty. " Those that seek my soul 
are destined for destruction " (so is the probable ren- 
dering) ; "they shall go into the lower parts of the 
earth " — swallowed up like Korah and his rebellious 
company. " They shall each be given up to the 
power of the sword " (as the words might be ren- 
dered ) ; " they shall be a portion for foxes " (or 
jackals, as the word means). Their unburied bodies 
shall lie in the wilderness, and the jackals shall tear 
and devour. David regarded his enemies as God's 
enemies. David's point of view permitted him to 
exult with a stern but not unrighteous joy in their 
destruction. But these words are not prayer nor 
imprecation, but prophecy and the insight of a soul 
conscious of union with God, and therefore assured 
that everything which stands in the way of its pos- 
session of the God whom it loves is destined for 
annihilation. 

And, disengaging the words from the mere husk 
*nd shell of Old Testament experience, all of us, if 
we cleave to God, may have this confidence that 
nothing can hinder our fellowship with God; and 



FOLLOWING HARD AFTER GOD I43 



that whatsoever stands in the way of our closer 
union with Him shall be swept out of the way. 
David's certainty of the destruction of his foes is 
the same triumphant assurance, on a lower spiritual 
level, as Paul's trumpet-blast of victory. " Who 
shall separate us from the love of God ? " Shall 
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or 
nakedness, or peril, or sword ? " " Nay, in all these 
things,"— and overall these things — "we are more 
than conquerors through Him that loved us." 

There is the other side of this prophetic certainty 
here. " The King shall rejoice in God ; every one 
that sweareth by Him shall glory." He and His 
faithful followers shall realize a divine deliverance, 
which shall be the subject of their praise ; and the 
adversary's lips shall be sealed with silence, their 
vindication shall stick in their throat, and they shall 
be dumb before the judgment of Almighty God. 
That confidence too may stand as a symbol of the 
certainty of hope which refreshes the soul which 
seeks and possesses God, even in the wilderness and 
while compassed with sorrows and fears. We, too, 
may find in our present union with God a prophecy 
fixed and firm as the pillars of His throne, of our 
future kingly dignity, and rapturous joy in Him. It 
is reserved not for us only but for all whose lips con- 
fessed Him on earth and shall therefore be opened 
to lift up before Him triumphant praise, which shall 
drown the discords of opposing voices, and no more 
be broken by sobs or weeping. 

My brother! we are all thirsty. Do you know 



H4 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



what it is that makes you restless ? Do you know 
who it is that you need ? Listen to Him that says : 
i( If any man thirst let him come to Me and drink." 
Choose whether you will thirst with mad and aimless 
cravings, and perish in a dry land ; or whether you 
will come to the " Fountain of Life in Christ, your 
Saviour, and slake your thirst at God Himself." 



FORGIVE AND BE FORGIVEN. 

James Freeman Clarke. 

j_J E who refuses to forgive an injury plants him- 
A * self on justice alone. He says, "The man does 
not deserve to be forgiven. He has no right to be 
forgiven." Thus he excludes mercy from his 
thoughts in the interest of justice. But what right 
has he himself to be forgiven on grounds of pure jus- 
tice? How can he escape the logic of his position 
when he takes his stand on justice and ignores mer- 
cy? The reaction of his argument excludes himself 
from the sphere of forgiving love. 

" Forgive and be forgiven " therefore means that 
an unforgiving spirit toward man closes the heart 
against the forgiving love of God. What we need is 
the forgiving spirit — the readiness and willingness to 
forgive wherever it is possible. It need not always 
be expressed in words— it may show itself in a kind 
action, in a pleasant look. The spirit of forgiveness 
is the essential thing. 

This forgiving spirit is an essential attribute of 
great souls. A man is incapable of the highest 



FORGIVE AND BE FORGIVEN 



145 



greatness and heroism who is brooding over his own 
injuries. Every great man encounters enemies, ev- 
ery great reform exasperates some opponent. Such 
men as Emerson, Garrison, Theodore Parker, Charles 
Sumner, and Washington himself, were the objects 
of calumny and misrepresentation. If they had 
spent time and strength in personal disputes they 
could not have done their work. They were obliged 
by their deeper purpose to forget these attacks, and 
go forward in their career of duty. I do not say 
that they consciously forgave their enemies, but 
they passed them by and went onward to something 
higher. 

We may do people a great deal of good by forgiv- 
ing them. Forgiveness will sometimes create an 
answering gratitude and love. <4 She loved much 
because she has been forgiven much," said Jesus, 
" for to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth 
little." 

One of the typical Christian heroes of my time, in 
whom mercy and truth met together, righteousness 
and peace kissed each other, was Samuel Joseph 
May. He was first settled as minister in the town 
of Brooklyn, Conn. While there the people of a 
neighboring town, Canterbury, made a violent op- 
position to a school for colored girls kept by a Miss 
Prudence Crandall, and persecuted both teacher and 
pupils, trying to drive them out of the town. Mr. 
May, always the champion of the oppressed, under- 
took the defense of Miss Crandall, and publicly sup- 
ported her, he standing by her side and rebuking the 

Lamps of the Temple — 10 



146 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



cruel prejudice of the people. To us today it seems 
incredible that there should be such opposition to a 
respectable private school, conducted quietly, and in- 
terfering with no one. But in those days the preju- 
dice against the free colored people was as bitter in 
the North as in the South. A townsman and pa- 
rishioner of Mr. May was a prominent leader of the 
attack on Miss Crandall's school, and, in the public 
meetings where Mr. May defended her, this man 
abused Mr. May in the grossest manner, and refused 
to speak to him when they met. Time passed, and 
one day, as Mr. May was driving past this man's 
house, he saw him at work in his garden among his 
fruit. Stopping his horse, Mr. May called to him, 
and said : " What beautiful melons you have ! I am 
going to ask you to give me one for my wife, who is 
very fond of melons.'' The man looked up and said : 
" Mr. May, I will give you a basketful, and bring 
them round to you myself." Nothing was said about 
repentance or forgiveness, but from that time they 
were good friends again. 

I have told this little story to call your attention 
to two facts which it illustrates. One is, that the 
power of forgiving love can be manifested without 
any formal statement. Mr. May showed the man 
that he had forgiven him, not in words, not even by 
doing him a kindness, but by asking a kindness 
from him. The man instantly felt, " If he asks me 
a favor, he cannot be angry with me." 

The other point is the power of forgiving love 
in doing away with alienation and hostility. It 



FORGIVE AND BE FORGIVEN 



147 



calls out what latent good there is in a man's nature. 
It shows him that if he is willing to repent and be 
reconciled, there is no obstacle in the way. This 
opponent of Mr. May had probably long been sorry 
for his conduct, but he was too proud or too timid 
to make the first advances. But the sunny kindness 
of Mr. May's face and words melted away all his 
doubts and brought out all his good feelings. 

But how can I love a man whom I believe to be 
unlovely ? How can I love a bad man, whose life 
is all wrong? 

The answer to this is, that you cannot love him 
if you think his life all wrong. If you believe him 
corrupt to the center. But is any man corrupt to 
the center ? Do not judge him by his actions 
merely, but by your own experience. When you 
do wrong, do you love the wrong? Do you not, in 
the depth of your soul, hate the wrong you are 
doing ? Are you frozen hard in evil down to the 
center? If you are not, why do you think he is? 
Is not that true of us all which the poet says of the 
river in winter — 

The deepest ice that ever froze 
Can only o'er the surface close; 
The living stream runs quick below, 
And flows, and shall forever flow ? 

It is not enough to " do to others as we would 
have them do to us." The rule goes deeper. We 
must feel for others as we would have them feel for 
us. We must think of others as we would have 
them think of us. We know as regards ourselves 



148 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



the truth of Paul's experience : " The good that I 
would, I do not , but the evil which I would not, 
that I do." " When I would do good, evil is present 
with me." " The spirit is willing," said Jesus ; 
" the flesh is weak." All men, in the depths of 
their souls, love good, and not evil. Believe that 
of your neighbor, and you cannot only forgive him, 
but love him. 

To forgive your enemy is to have a spirit of good- 
will toward him, to believe in his deeper nature, to 
feel toward him as you wish God to feel toward you. 
It is to be in sympathy with Infinite Love, When- 
ever we are in communion with God we are also in 
communion with man. 

During the storm of the past week we had an 
instance of one of the curious complications arising 
out of modern civilization. Boston and New York 
were wholly separated by the terrible drifts of snow 
and the frozen rails. The telegraph wires were 
down, and we were thrown back a hundred years to 
the time when it took a week for the two cities to 
communicate. What happened then ? We opened 
a communication with New York by way of Lon- 
don, sending messages under the vast Atlantic. 
When the frozen land could not carry our messages, 
the mighty ocean, " unchangeable save in its wild 
waves' play," became our medium of communication. 

And when the storms of passion and the frosts of 
selfishness close all communication between our 
heart and that of our brother man we may come 
again into communion with him through the infinite 



FORGIVE AND BE FORGIVEN 



149 



ocean of divine love. " If God so loves us, we ought 
also to love one another," If God forgives our sins, 
we can forgive our brother's sin. Before the im- 
mensity of that heavenly forgiveness all earthly hos- 
tilities fade away and disappear. To forgive our 
enemy is to feel toward him as we believe that God 
feels toward us. 

To believe in God's forgiving love to ourselves 
and to forgive others go together. Therefore Jesus 
has put them together in His prayer. And some- 
times when we are able to forgive others we feel for 
the first time that God can forgive us. The true 
sacrament through which God's love enters our heart 
is not any outward ceremony, but an act of generous 
and full forgiveness to those who have done us 
wrong. When we forgive our enemies we put our- 
selves in an attitude of soul by which the forgiveness 
of God comes to us. When we are hard and unfor- 
giving to others we shut up our own hearts against 
God's love. There is nothing arbitrary in the saying 
of Jesus, " If you forgive others, God will forgive 
you ; if you do not forgive others, God will not for- 
give you." It is the simple working of a natural 
law. The same act which closes oui heart against 
man closes it against God ; the same act which opens 
our heart to those whom we dislike, whom we con- 
demn, whom we believe our enemies, whom we look 
on as having done us wrong, opens our heart also to 
God. But we cannot really forgive another until we 
love him ; we can say we forgive him ; we can wish 
him all happiness, but while we remain inwardly 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



alienated, having no real communion with him, we 
do not forgive him. But Jesus says, " Love your 
enemies," and anything less than that is not enough. 
Nothing but genuine love will take the root of 
bitterness out of our heart. 

The work of Christ in the world is to overcome 
evil with good, hatred with love, war with peace, err- 
or with truth. To be a Christian is to be a fellow- 
worker with Christ in this spirit and method. 
Therefore we must lay aside bitterness and wrath 
and evil-speaking and malice, and be kind to one an- 
other, forgiving one another, even as God, in Christ, 
forgives us. 



HERE was a time when the whole Christian 



world was one in faith and in worship. Not so 
now. There is a vast world, which I am glad still 
to call a Christian world, but it is not a Catholic 
world. There are multitudes, and even nations, 
that have been robbed of their faith and rent from 
the unity of the Church. Their posterity is born 
into that state of privation— born disinherited 
through no fault of their own. There is a world 
which is Christian, but a world, after all. I want, 
however, to come more closely to ourselves, and 
show you that within the unity of the Church and 
of the faith there is still a world— a pernicious and 
pestilent world. The world we have already seen 



WORLDLINESS IN THE CHURCH. 



Cardinal Manning. 




WORLD LINESS IN THE CHURCH 



to be man without God — independence of the intel- 
lect, refusing to believe ; independence of the heart 
indulging itself in its own affections and passions, 
and independence of the will, which becomes a law 
unto itself. These three elements of disorder are 
not clothed as idols in wood or stone ; they are 
spiritual ; they are in the atmosphere, and the at- 
mosphere carries these three perversions of human 
nature into the unity of the Church itself. At first 
sight you may think that a member of the Church, 
that is, one who has been born again in baptism, 
made a member of Christ, and a temple of the Holy 
Ghost, cannot be a member of the world. But no. 
First of all, there are those who are in the Church 
but out of grace ; those who, by mortal sin, have 
cut themselves off from union by charity with our 
Divine Lord, and through Him with our Heavenly 
Father. They received in their baptism, faith, hope 
and charity, and sanctifying grace, but by mortal 
sin, whether of flesh or of the spirit, they have for- 
feited the charity of God, and forfeiting the charity 
of God, they forfeit the sanctifying grace of the 
Holy Ghost which is in them ; and the charity of 
God and the sanctifying grace of the Holy Ghost is 
the spiritual life of the soul, and they who extin- 
guish that spiritual life become dead. And there- 
fore they were dead members of the Mystical Body 
of Christ — dead branches of the mystical vine. 
Nevertheless, they can be received again, for though 
they have not charity in them, and though they 
have not sanctifying grace in them, faith is in them 



152 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



still — unless by infidelity they have rejected it — and 

where faith is, hope will linger, so that potentially — 
virtually — they are still united to the Divine Head 
in Heaven by faith. As in the Prodigal Son, when 
he came to himself, there was a gleam of the recol- 
lection of his father and of his home, so even in 
those members of the Church who have fallen into 
mortal sin, there is still a union by the knowledge 
and the light of faith with our Divine Redeemer ; 
but being dead members, they are dead as regards 
eternal life. And what is the life they lead ? They 
live by the life of the world, not by the life of the 
Holy Ghost, which was in them ; they live by the 
mind, and the spirit, and the- ways, and the will of 
the world. 

Our Lord has said that we cannot serve two mas- 
ters ; we cannot serve God and mammon. We 
must make our choice, for again He says, " He 
who is not with Me is against Me." Take a second 
class — those who are just spiritually alive and no 
more. The bruised reed is not broken, for there is 
a fiber still remaining ; the smoking flax is not 
quenched, for there is a gleam which only shows 
itself in smoke. It is the lowest condition of spirit- 
ual life, and there are multitudes in it. They have 
the least possible conformity to the mind and the 
spirit and life of our Lord Jesus Christ ; and they 
have a great and close conformity to the mind and 
the spirit and the life of the world. Is it not true 
to say that though spiritually alive they are mem- 
bers of the world ? Their mind is for the world, 



WORLDLINESS IN THE CHURCH 1 53 



their heart is for the world, and Saint Augus- 
tine says, " there are those who are in the body 
within the unity of the Church, but in heart 
they are outside of it." There is a third class. 
There is a class of men — and they are a large class — 
who are exceedingly jealous of the claims of the 
world, and exceedingly niggardly with regard to 
the rights of God, for while they give to the world 
everything that the world demands of them, when 
it becomes a question of what God has a right to 
demand, they minimize, as we say ; they reduce 
compliance to a minimum. They begin by reduc- 
ing to a minimum that which they are bound to 
believe. They say, " I believe dogma, but nothing 
else. I believe that which I cannot deny under the 
pain of mortal sin." They claim for themselves 
intellectual liberty, they reduce their faith to a 
minimum. Is that the spirit of God or the spirit of 
the world ? But they go farther. They reduce 
that which they do in like manner. They say : " I 
keep the Ten Commandments. I won't break the 
precepts of the Church. What I am bound to do 
I will do — but no more." Is that the spirit of the 
Church or of the world ? Where is humility, where 
is generosity of heart, where is thankfulness to 
our Divine Redeemer, where is sympathy with His 
Passion ? They apply this to many things — for 
instance, to almsgiving. They say, " I am not bound 
to give, and if I am not bound, why should I ?" Yes, 
but they should remember that we shall be judged, 
not by that which we are bound to do only, but by 



154 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



that which we have done freely, generously, and 
without obligation. And they speak thus, not only 
of the corporal works of mercy, but of the spiritual. 
They say, "What have I to do with multiplying 
missions, parishes, churches, priests, missionaries ? 
That is the work of the Bishop and his priest." 
There are two things to be remembered by those 
who speak and act in this spirit. Our Lord has 
said, " Freely you have received ; freely give.*" 
And He was then speaking of the word of God 
and the Holy Sacraments whereby we are saved. 
There was one other word for them to remember. 
The first man who spoke in that spirit said, " Am I 
my brother's keeper?" and you know who that was. 
They also minimize and reduce that which they 
give up or sacrifice for the sake of conscience and 
of duty. And there are many who do not as yet 
exactly fall under this category, but who, being con- 
vinced of the truth, of the holy faith, are not ready 
to sacrifice all things for it. And yet our Lord has 
said, " Unless a man daily take up his cross and 
follow Me, he cannot be My disciple. ' I am now 
speaking of Catholics. If we are not ready to make 
sacrifice for conscience* sake, do not fall under this 
censure ? Remember these two things : a lax 
Catholic is the favorite of the world. There is 
nothing the world loves so much as a bad Catholic, 
with one exception only. A good Catholic is a 
rebuke to the world, because his life is founded on 
a high standard. But a lax Catholic, whose life falls 
below that standard, gives a consolation and relief 



DIGNITY AND RIGHTSOF LABOR 155 

to the lax conscience by which the world lives. 
There is something, however, worse than this. A 
bad priest is the world's saint. When the world 
finds a bad priest it fondles him with all manner of 
indulgences. Can anything be more in the spirit 
of the world than this? There is only one thing 
worse than a bad priest : and that is a bad angel, 
who fell from the presence of God Himself ; and 
the world in receiving a bad priest, with so much 
love and favor is acting in accordance with the 
spirit of the bad angel, who is the god of this world. 



THE DIGNITY AND RIGHTS OF LABOR. 

Cardinal Gibbons. 

T^HE Redeemer of mankind has never conferred a 
greater temporal blessing on the human race than 
by ennobling and sanctifying labor, and by rescuing it 
from the stigma of degradation that had been 
branded upon it. He is ushered into the world not 
environed by the splendor of imperial majesty, nor 
attended by the force of mighty legions. He comes 
rather as the reputed child of an artisan, and the 
days of His boyhood and early manhood are spent 
in a mechanic's shop. " Is not this the carpenter, 
the son of Mary ? " 

The primeval curse attached to labor has been ob- 
literated by the toilsome life of Jesus Christ. He 
has shed a halo around the workshop, and has 
lightened the mechanic's tools by assuming the trade 
of an artisan. If the profession of a general, a jurist, 



i 5 6 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



a statesman, and a prelate is adorned by the ex- 
ample of a Washington, a Taney, a Burke, and a 
Carroll, how much more is the calling of a workman 
ennobled by the example of Christ ! 

I cannot conceive any thought better calculated 
to ease the yoke and to lighten the burden of the 
Christian toiler than the reflection that the highest 
type of manhood had voluntarily devoted Himself 
to manual labor. 

Labor is honorable on other grounds. It con- 
tributes to the prosperity of the country, and what- 
ever conduces to a nation's welfare is most worthy 
of commendation. It is not the office or occupation 
that dignifies the man, but it is the man that digni- 
fies the office. 

Honor and shame from no condition rise; 
Act well your part — there all the honor lies. 

Cincinnatus lent dignity to agriculture by work- 
ing at the plow. Caligula, by an infamous life, 
degraded his crown and imperial purple. 

De Tocqueville could not pay a juster and more 
beautiful tribute of praise to the genius of our 
country than when he wrote in 1835 that every 
honest occupation in the United States was honora- 
ble. The honest, industrious man is honored among 
us, whether he work with his hands or with his brains, 
because he is an indispensable factor in the nation's 
progress. He is the bee in the social hive ; he is the 
benefactor of his race, because he is always produc- 
ing something for the common weal. 



DIGNITY AND RIGHTS OF LABOR 1 5/ 



God bless the noble working men 
Who rear the cities of the plain, 
Who dig the mines and build the ships, 
And drive the commerce of the main. 
God bless them ! for their swarthy hands 
Have wrought the glory of our lands. 

As an evidence of the esteem in which the thrifty 
son of toil is held among us, we see from daily ob- 
servation that the humblest avocations of life are no 
bar whatever to the highest preferment in the Com- 
monwealth, when talent and ability are allied to 
patient industry. Franklin was a printer; President 
Lincoln's youthful days were spent in wielding the 
axe and in handling the plow on his father's farm. 
President Johnson in his boyhood was apprenticed 
to a tailor. Grant was the son of a tanner, and 
Garfield once drove a canal boat. These examples 
are given not to excite a morbid and feverish am- 
bition in the heart of the laborer or the artisan, but 
to illustrate the truth that no stain is affixed to the 
lowest pursuits of life. 

In honoring and upholding labor, the nation is 
strengthening its own hands as well as paying a 
tribute to worth. For a contented and happy work- 
ing-class is the best safeguard of the Republic, while 
ill-paid and discontented laborers, like the starving 
and enslaved populace of Rome in the time of 
Augustus Caesar, would be a constant menace and 
reproach to the country. 

Labor has its sacred rights as well as its dignity. 
Paramount among the rights of the laboring classes 
is their privilege to organize, or to form themselves 



158 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



into societies for their mutual protection and bene- 
fit. It is in accordance with natural right that those 
who have one common interest should unite to- 
gether for its promotion. Our modern labor associ- 
ations are the legitimate successors of the ancient 
guilds of England. 

In our days there is a universal tendency toward 
organizations in every department of trade and busi- 
ness. In union there is strength in the physical, 
moral, and social world ; and just as the power and 
majesty of our Republic are derived from the politi- 
cal union of the several States, so do men clearly 
perceive that the healthy combination of human 
forces in the economic world can accomplish results 
which could not be effected by any individual efforts. 
Throughout the United States and Great Britain 
there is today a continuous network of syndicates 
and trusts, of companies and partnerships, so that 
every operation, from the construction of a leviathan 
steamship to the manufacture of a needle, is con- 
trolled by a corporation. 

When corporations thus combine, it is quite natural 
that mechanics and laborers should follow their ex- 
ample. It would be as unjust to deny to working- 
men the right to band together because of the 
abuses incident to such combinations, as to withhold 
the same right from capitalists because they some- 
times unwarrantably seek to crush or absorb weaker 
rivals. 

Another potent reason for encouraging labor 
unions suggests itself. Secret societies, lurking in 



DIGNITY AND RIGHTS OF LABOR 1 59 



dark places and plotting the overthrow of existing 
governments have been the bane of continental 
Europe. The repressive policy of those govern- 
ments, and their mistrust of the intelligence and 
virtue of the people, have given rise to those mis- 
chievous organizations ; for men are apt to conspire 
in secret if not permitted to express their views 
openly. The public recognition among us of the 
right to organize implies a confidence in the intelli- 
gence and honesty of the masses ; it affords them an 
opportunity of training themselves in the school of 
self-government and in the art of self-discipline ; it 
takes away from them every excuse and pretext for 
the formation of dangerous societies ; it exposes to 
the light of public scrutiny the constitution and 
laws of the association and the deliberations of the 
members ; it inspires them with a sense of their re- 
sponsibility as citizens, and with a laudable desire 
of meriting the approval of their fellow-citizens. 
" It is better," as Matthew Arnold observes, " that 
the body of the people, with all its faults, should 
act for itself, and control its own affairs, than that it 
should be set aside as ignorant and incapable, and 
have its affairs managed for it by a so-called superior 
class." 

God forbid that the prerogatives which we are 
maintaining for the working-classes should be con- 
strued as implying the slightest invasion of the 
rights and autonomy of employers. There should 
not and need not be any conflict between labor and 
capital, since both are necessary for the public good, 



i6o 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



and the one depends on the co-operation of the 
other, A contest between the employer and the 
employed is as unreasonable and as hurtful to the so- 
cial body as a war between the head and the hands 
would be to the physical body. Such an antagonism 
recalls the fabled conspiracy on the part of members 
of the body against the stomach. Whoever tries to 
sow discord between the capitalist and the laborer is 
an enemy of social order. Every measure should 
therefore be discountenanced that sustains the one 
at the expense of the other. Whoever strives to 
improve the friendly relations between the proprie- 
tors and the labor unions, by suggesting the most 
effectual means of diminishing and even removing 
the causes of discontent, is a benefactor to the com- 
munity. With this sole end in view we venture to 
touch this delicate subject, and if these lines con- 
tribute in some small measure to strengthen the 
bond of union between the enterprising men of capi- 
tal and the sons of toil, we shall be amply rewarded. 

That " the laborer is worthy of his hire " is the 
teaching of Christ as well as the dictate of reason 
itself. He is entitled to a fair and just compensa- 
tion for his services. He deserves something more, 
and that is kind and considerate treatment. There 
would be less ground for complaint against em- 
ployers if they kept in view the golden maxim of 
the Gospel : " Whatsoever ye would that men should 
do unto you, do ye also to them." 

Our sympathies for those in our employ, whether 
in the household, the mines, or the factory, are 



MUSINGS FOR A NEW YEAR'S MORNING l6l 



wonderfully quickened by putting ourselves in their 
place, and asking ourselves how we would wish to 
be treated under similar circumstances. We should 
remember that they are our fellow-beings ; that they 
have feelings like ourselves ; that they are stung by 
a sense of injustice, repelled by an overbearing 
spirit, and softened by kindness ; and that it largely 
rests with us whether their hearts and homes are to 
be clouded with sorrow or radiant with joy. 



MUSINGS FOR A NEW YEAR'S MORNING. 



HIS is the first day of a new year. What an 



hour for resolutions ; what a moment for prayer ! 
If you have sins in your bosom, cast them behind 
you now. In the last year God has blessed us ; 
blessed us all. On some His angels waited, robed in 
white, and brought new joys ; here a wife, to bind 
men closer yet to Providence ; and there a child, a 
new Messiah, sent to tell of innocence and heaven. 
To some His angels came clad in dark livery, veiling 
a joyful countenance with unpropitious wings, and 
bore away child, father, sister, wife or friend. Still 
were they angels of good Providence, all God's own ; 
and he who looks aright finds that they also brought 
a blessing, but concealed and left it, though they 
spoke no word of joy. One day our weeping brother 
shall find that gift and wear it as a diamond on his 
breast. 



Theodore Parker. 




Lamps of the Temple — u 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



The hours are passing over us, and with them the 
day. What shall the future days be, and what the 
year? What we make them, such will they be. God 
gives us time. We weave it into life, such figures as 
we may, and wear it as we will. Age slowly rots 
away the gold we are set in, but the adamantine soul 
lives on, radiant every way in the light streaming 
down from God. The genius of eternity, star- 
crowned, beautiful, and with prophetic eyes, leads us 
to the gates of time, and gives us one more year, 
bidding us to fill that golden cup with water as we 
can or will. There stand the dirty, fetid pools of 
worldliness and sin ; curdled and mantled, film-cov- 
ered, streaked and striped with many a hue, they 
shine there, in the slanting light of new-born day. 
Around them stand the sons of earth, and cry. " Come 
hither; drink thou and be saved! Here fill thy 
golden cup ! " There you may seek to fill your urn ; 
to stay your thirst. The deceitful element, slipping 
through your hands, shall mock your lip. It is water 
only to the eye. Nay, show water only, unto men 
half blind. But there, hard by, runs down the 
stream of life, its waters never frozen, never dry, fed 
by perennial dews falling unseen from God. Fill 
there thine urn, oh, brother man, and thou shalt 
thirst no more for selfishness and crime, and faint no 
more amid the toil and heat of day ; wash there, and 
the leprosy of sin, its scales of blindness, shall fall 
off, and thou be clean forever. Kneel there and 
pray ; God shall inspire thy heart with truth and 
love, and fill thy cup with never-ending joy. 



OUR THOUGHTS OF GOD 



163 



OUR THOUGHTS OF GOD GROW NOBLER. 



UR notion of God becomes nobler and more 



grand with every enlargement of our universe. 
One Spirit rules all life, here or in the farthest star, 
and this Spirit knows and loves the heart of His crea- 
tures. This Spirit we now call Father, and we now 
call God. Language exhausts itself when it tries to 
speak His greatness ; and language fails as well 
when it tries to speak of the exquisite detail of the 
intimacy of His love. But in this last failure, He- 
brew prophets and Hebrew poets have failed the 
least ; precisely because they had no visible image 
of God, precisely because there was for them no 
ivory statue and no gigantic Sphinx — this on the 
Acropolis or that by the Nile, — they could feel God 
with them everywhere. " If I ascend into heaven 
He is there. If I make my bed in the depths He is 
there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell 
in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall 
Thy right hand guide me." God here ! God there! 
God everywhere ! It is this God — infinite Spirit — 
of whom such men said, now that He was a shep- 
herd, now that He was a rock, now that He was a for- 
tress, and now that He was a man of war. They said 
He spoke, not because they heard articulated words, 
but because they knew His wisdom from their folly. 
They said He gave His beloved sleep, not because any 
form as of Morpheus descended, but because they 
knew that every perfect gift comes from His perfect 



E. E. Hale, D.D. 




164 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



love. Because He is spirit — nothing but spirit — un- 
limited as spirit must be, not vexed by material 
analogy, they dared, and had a right to dare, the 
boldest figures of speech, metaphor here and simile 
there, and in their language it was 

The Lord who spoke to Moses, 

The Lord who led Israel as a shepherd, 

The Lord who stretched out His right hand, 

The Lord who shadowed the outcast with His wings. 

And we, just in proportion as with our wide science 
and nobler knowledge, we know what the word infi- 
nite means. We safely use the figures which express 
most directly His constant love. It is God who 
paints the rose ; it is God who streaks the lily ; it is 
God who smiles in the sunshine ; it is God who 
thunders in the storm. 

The essence of absolute religion is the help which 
the present God thus gives to each creature and 
each child of His, in the least thing or in the great- 
est. That all life is His life, to feel this wholly is 
absolute religion. " Do not connect God with ex- 
ceptional acts, but with the habitual course and cur- 
rent of existence." I take the words from Maurice, 
whose sermons are full of this truth, the central 
truth which made him the power which he has been 
to young England in his day. " God is a being 
without whom the vulgarest affairs of men are un- 
intelligible and anomalous." This is another of his 
phrases : " There comes to a waking man," he says, 
" in broad daylight that assurance of an invisible 



OUR THOUGHTS OF GOD 



I6 5 



being near him, before whom he must bow down, 
which came to Jacob when he slept. It is the dis- 
covery to that man of an actual person, of the God 
of his fathers, of him who had spoken to them." 
More words are used in describing what was re- 
vealed to Moses on Horeb ; but it was no more 
revealed to him than it is revealed to any child of 
God, in that blessed hour of his life when he finds 
that his God is with him. This power which rules 
the world is as careful of me as of Orion in his 
course. That reality comes home to the humblest 
child of God as it comes to the noblest. He, too, 
may trust God. He may listen. He may ask. He 
may walk with God. He may rest with God. Let 
such a child meet with other such children, and we 
have such an assembly as we have here now. We 
might sit all in silence here — as sometimes the 
Friends do in their silent meetings ; we might all 
sit, not speaking — we often do ; — satisfied with the 
soothing tones of music, which summon us into 
harmony with all that is harmonious, while at one 
and the same moment, they subdue passion and 
quicken life. Or we may want to speak and listen, 
one to another. If we do, we shall be wise to 
take the simplest words we can find, the simplest 
words a child might hit upon ; to speak of God 
as being as close to us as we to each other, — as 
ready to act as the boldest of us or the best. 
And if we do this, we shall inevitably be using the 
simplest language of Hebrew, Galilean, or other 
Scripture. 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



Indeed, we came here, partly to join in our wor- 
ship of one God, partly to quicken this very habit of 
thought which includes God in every action, and 
makes Him always a companion. He was not with 
Moses' camp-fire more than He is with me in my 
daily march. As He spoke to Isaiah, so He speaks to 
you when you reverently listen. Only in common 
life there are a thousand voices. In common life 
we are less apt to listen, so we come here. We 
screen off this and that annoyance ; we try to sur- 
round ourselves with every association that shall re- 
mind us of His close contact with the sons of man. 
Such a history as the march across the desert is one 
of them. The power that rules for righteousness 
toolclsrael, a slave from Egypt, and in a generation 
of men gave Israel the home of his fathers. Such 
songs as David's psalms are full of such associations. 
The shepherd lay under the open sky of the wilder- 
ness. He saw the white fleecy cloud form itself 
above the cool forests of Hermon and of Lebanon. He 
saw the southerly drift of those heavy laden clouds, 
as the slow north wind bore them south across Israel. 
He saw them in the south, dropping in dew, falling 
in showers over the dry, hot crags of Zion. He did 
not believe that this did itself. He believed that 
the infinite Spirit, which had led him in ways he had 
not known, cared also for Israel and for Zion. And 
he said so: "It is the dew of Hermon which de- 
scends upon the mountains of Zion. For there the 
Lord commanded the blessing." And so when any 
poet, in his best moment of seif-forgetfulness and of 



OUR THOUGHTS OF GOD 



167 



remembering God, has sung for us the beauty and 
the wisdom of God's present love, — 

That not a grain of dust can be, 
O Fount of Being, save from thee. 

But all this does not mean that the Hymn-book is 
harping on exceptional mercies. Nor does it mean 
that we are trying to go back to that conception of 
God in which He came down from one little world to 
another little world, and on His visit walked with 
Adam in a garden. It means that these poets or 
prophets have been able to say for us what all of us 
cannot say in words, and that the gratitude of all 
time has fixed those words among the world's fa- 
vored Scriptures. A hymn of Keble or of Cowper, a 
psalm of David, a statute of Moses, utter it for us 
with energy and passion which we are almost sure to 
remember. 

One of the saints of this world who has done the 
duty next his hand with that loyalty and courage 
which have made him loved and honored among all 
men around him, in giving me some sacred confi- 
dences of his religious life, went back to tell me of 
his apprenticeship. " I was in the paint-shop," he 
said. " I mixed blue with yellow and poured in the 
oil upon them with which I was to grind them. I 
saw the colors change beneath my eyes. Was I a 
creator ? Then I knew, then I felt that I was a fel- 
low-workman together with God. ' He is here,' I 
said. 1 It is the present God who works these 
changes. What my master calls the law of nature 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



is God's present wish, as He works with me, His 
child.' " To know this, to know it once for all, is 
to begin to live as a child of God, as a partaker of 
God's nature. It is to know the infinity of life, its 
divinity and sacredness. 

" Surely the Lord is in this place, though I knew 
it not. This is none other than the house of God 
and this is the gate of heaven." 

GROWING IN GRACE. 

Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D. 

"PROW in grace!" Personal religion involves 
growth in grace, so that where there is a 
growth there is personal religion ; and where there 
is no growth, — although there be interest in religious 
subjects, and keenness about controversies, and a 
warm defense of orthodoxy, — there is no personal 
religion. 

To say that personal religion is characterized by 
growth is only another form of saying that the man 
who has it is spiritually alive. There is no organic 
life without growth in nature ; and there is no spirit- 
ual life without growth in grace. 

Is my religion a growing one ? Does it wax 
stronger against temptation, more steadfast in faith, 
more constant and more fervent in prayer, as years 
roll on ? Are my views of God and Christ enlarging 
and becoming more adequate ? Are they more 
humbling to myself, but at the same time more in- 
wardly satisfactory and consolatory than they used 



GROWING IN GRACE 



169 



to be ? Are besetting sins more resolutely and suc- 
cessfully resisted than they used to be ? Is the 
Spirit's agency in my soul deep and profound, " a 
well of water springing up into everlasting life?" 

The point is not whether I have very warm 
emotions in connection with religion ; nor whether I 
fulfill certain religious duties with zeal and regularity ; 
nor whether I am satisfied with my own life ; nor 
whether I am in sight of the goal of perfection. 
The one question is, Am I growing? In those 
periods when a man can say, " I lost myself sadly 
yesterday in temper or in talk ; but I know my cruci- 
fied Lord took upon Him those sins and answered 
for them, and today I will earnestly strive against 
them in the strength of His Spirit," — these are the 
dewy mornings of the soul, when the spiritual life 
within us sprouts and blossoms apace. 

Deliberate, habitual sin cannot possibly consist 
with spiritual growth ; but the shaking of a man's 
steadfastness by a sudden tornado of temptation 
(which was St. Peter's case) may do so. The great 
question is whether, after such fall, the will recovers 
its spring and elasticity, and makes a fresh start with 
more fervent prayer and resolve. 

The one sign of vital personal religion, I say 
again, is growth. There is no growth in a life of 
spiritual routine, in mechanical performance of 
duties, in mechanical attendance upon ordinances. 
There is no growth in the deliberate adoption of a 
low standard, in the attempt to keep back a moiety 
of the heart from Christ, in consenting to go with 



170 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



God thus far only and no farther. There is no 
growth in contenting ourselves with respectability 
and declining the pursuit of holiness. There is no 
growth without fervent prayer, " in spirit and in 
truth." There is no growth, whatever may be the 
hopes with which we are flattering ourselves, with- 
out continual and sincere effort. 



THE GRAND MESSAGE OF THE YEARS. 

Rabbi Schiendler. 

"\ \J HAT shall we learn from the contemplation of 
" the marvelous changes that have taken place 
during this century between the time when George 
Washington was placed in the Presidential chair to 
the time that President Benjamin Harrison graces 
it? The lesson is a simple one, namely, not to dep- 
recate the prophet who predicts for the next hun- 
dred years a change in all our human affairs, a change 
in the political, social, and religious conditions of 
the world which will be so much more marvelous, 
so much more surprising than were those of the 
past as are the facilities of our day for progress 
and improvement greater than they have ever been 
before. Changes that took half a century before 
are now accomplished within a few years, and a 
decade of today is equal in effectiveness to trans- 
form conditions to a century of the past. Do not 
deprecate the prophet when he tells you that a 
hundred years from now there will be neither inso- 
lent wealth nor abject or depraved poverty ; that 



THE GRAND MESSAGE 



171 



human society will have been placed upon a differ- 
ent foundation ; that men will have learned that it 
is better for them to work together, to unite their 
efforts, than to work separately and every one for 
himself. Do not spurn the prophet when he tells 
you that even the last vestiges of crime will be re- 
moved, because the motive of crime, selfishness, will 
be removed. Do not call him a visionary dreamer 
when he tells you that after the expiration of the 
next century that fearful dread that hangs over 
humanity — the dread, namely, of poverty, of starva- 
tion—will be removed ; that a man will not need to 
be afraid of the day to come, nor that his children 
will be left wanting the necessities of life. Do not 
haggle with him about a year or two when such 
happier conditions will be established, nor demand 
of him to tell you in detail how the change will be 
effected. Could the prophet of a hundred years 
ago foretell in which way all the conditions of today 
would be achieved? Lend a helping hand toward 
the establishment of a better state of affairs. Learn 
to understand that no matter how much the last 
century has given us, our conditions are far from 
perfect; that we have not yet established full liberty; 
that humanity has not yet become a common 
brotherhood ; that our assertions of such kind are 
mere oratorical pyrotechnics, but that they are 
worthless elsewhere than upon the pulpit or the 
platform. Learn to understand that it lies with us 
whether these changes shall be brought about 
gradually, rationally and peaceably, or whether 



172 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



they shall be ushered into the world at the sacrifice 
of many innocent members of human society. 
Learn to understand that nothing is impossible as 
long as it does not stand in contradiction to the 
laws of nature but rather conforms with them. Learn, 
finally, to understand that it is not enough to pride 
ourselves, as I have said before, on account of the 
achievements of former ages or generations, but 
that true glory alone is to be found in the thought 
that we have accomplished at least something for 
the betterment of future generations. 

We are frequently told that we must do this or 
that because our ancestors did the same, because 
they considered it the right thing ; or, we incite 
ourselves to some action by the thought that future 
generations will look back upon ours with admira- 
tion and glory in our deeds. Neither of the two 
should be a motive for any of our deeds. We 
should strive onward because we consider it our 
duty to go ahead. We should help improving 
conditions because it behooves us to pave the road 
for the progress of humanity. What we do we 
should do for ourselves and for those that come 
after us, even if they should forget us and never 
bestow upon us that admiration which we expect of 
them as a tribute. Look around and behold the 
misery in which thousands of people still live; be- 
hold the ignorance which still benights their souls ; 
behold the inequality between man and man. Pon- 
der over the definitions that are yet given to what 
is right and what is wrong, and then when your heart 



THE GRAND MESSAGE 



173 



is filled with compassion and a prophet foretells you 
that all these inequalities will be leveled down or 
will disappear on some future day ; that this earth is 
rich enough to support all in abundance ; that all 
human beings have a right to a happy life by the 
very fact that they are born alike and are common 
heirs to the great inheritance that has come down 
to us from the toil of thousands of generations, do 
not reject him, but help to spread these humani- 
tarian and philanthropic ideas. Instil them into your 
children and thus help to push the wheel of time 
onward as long as no human power is able to retard it. 

No human eye can see the countenance of God 
and live, but when the glory of God has passed by 
it can catch a glimpse of it. Thus the light of the 
coming civilization may dazzle our eye so that we 
may beg that God should hold His hands over us 
until He has passed by and that we may then be per- 
mitted to behold the accomplished fact. While, 
however, it may be dangerous to stare into the daz- 
zling light of the sun, we ought not to deny the 
existence of the sun, nor ought we to close our eyes 
and make ourselves believe that night prevails. 
We should do what we can and leave the rest to 
Him who has been the Father of mankind, who has 
laid out its road, and who has marked the milestones 
to which every generation is to proceed. Let us learn 
from the contemplation of the past century that God 
not only was, but that He is and will ever be, the same 
Father of mankind, the same Ruler of our destinies. 

It is a remarkable fact that a hundred years when 



174 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



they have passed appear to us as if they were a 
space of time not longer than one year, while to 
think a century in advance is almost an impossibil- 
ity even to the ablest mind. The events of the past 
are like beads that have been strung up in manifold 
forms upon a thread, but the events of the future 
are like beads lying around loose in large quantities 
unassorted, and offering to the mind of the beholder 
numerous possible combinations. Whatever con- 
cerns the past appears to us as plausible and pos- 
sible ; whatever concerns the future is generally 
rejected as impossible. The most marvelous affairs 
that have happened, the astonishing events that 
have shaped the conditions of humanity, are looked 
upon as the natural outcome of natural causes, 
while the simplest predictions of events to occur on 
some future day meet with incredulity, and are not 
unfrequently spurned as absurd. This contempla- 
tion and meditation is, so to say, forced upon us 
today, when we stand near the close of a round 
century. One hundred years have passed since the 
first President of the United States of America took 
the oath of his office — since George Washington, or, 
as we are accustomed to call him, " the Father of 
his Country," was inaugurated in New York as 
President of the United States. It is now easy for 
us to look backward upon the period of time which 
has elapsed since that remarkable event. Now that 
the glory of God has passed by and the cover is 
taken from our eyes we may behold all that has 
happened. We may behold the wonderful rise and 



THE GRAND MESSAGE 



175 



development of this country ; we may behold the 
fruit that has grown from the seeds which were 
planted a hundred years ago ; but at the time of 
Washington's inauguration, who would have dared 
to predict the occurrences of this century? If a 
man would have stood up and would have foretold 
that within the comparatively short space of one 
century the thirteen States of the Union would be 
tripled, that their area would become ten times as 
large, and the number of inhabitants increased beyond 
proportion ; if he would have prophesied that 
through mechanical inventions of all kinds the 
wealth of the nation would have been increased be- 
yond expectation, that within the short space of one 
week the continent could be crossed by a person, 
that within one hour a message could be sent from 
one end of the land to the other, or that within 
twenty-four hours the news of any occurrence could 
reach the most distant corner of the world in print, 
people would have looked at him as upon a man 
who is either dreaming of impossibilities or entirely 
out of his mind. They would have rejected his 
prophecies with scorn, and would have told him that 
not in a thousand years all such achievements as he 
described them could be realized. If the same man 
would have foretold them that slavery would be 
abolished and that the colored man would be allowed 
to cast his ballot at the Presidential election like 
any other citizen, they would have considered such 
a prediction too ridiculous, too laughable, to give it 
any earnest thought. Or, if he would have inti- 



176 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



mated that opinions like those expressed by Thomas 
Paine would be the ruling convictions of all intelli- 
gent persons, that the supernatural origin of the 
Bible would have been relegated at that time to the 
domain of fables, and that what was known and 
whispered within the circles of a few select people 
would be known by all and discussed openly every- 
where, they would have supplied him with a place 
in the lunatic asylum. But all has been accom- 
plished. All this has taken place ; all this is to us 
of such daily occurrence that we hardly stop to 
think about it, and reviewing these hundred years 
we do not express the least surprise at such a mirac- 
ulous development. But how would it be if we today 
should look ahead a hundred years instead of con- 
templating that space of time in the past? If a 
person should rise among us and should give us a 
sketch of the possible conditions of human affairs a 
hundred years from now ; if the changes in political, 
social and religious matters which necessarily must 
occur during such a period of time could be de- 
scribed to us, would we not incredulously shake our 
heads ? Would we not consider the author of such 
a description to be a visionary dreamer? Would we 
not reject all such predictions as absurd, preposter- 
ous, impossible, and at least premature? The same 
old allegory finds its adaptation with us. We cannot 
look into the countenance of God, but we may 
behold Him when His glory has passed by. 

A short review of all that has passed during this 
century may be helpful to us to form some idea what 



THE GRAND MESSAGE 



177 



the century before us may develop. And to think 
of what lies before us, of what we have to help bring 
about, is not half as idle as reflecting upon what 
has passed. We generally pride ourselves on what 
has been accomplished by our ancestors, on what 
has been achieved by our predecessors, but such is a 
cheap glory. We have not done anything toward it. 
And what right have we then to feel proud or to 
bask in the sunshine of such glory ? Would it not 
be much more honorable to pave the way in which 
future generations are to walk and to seek satisfac- 
tion, or, if it must be, glory in the thought that we 
are lending a helpful hand toward the betterment of 
conditions, that we are lending a helpful hand toward 
removing evils which the generations of the past 
have been unable to shove aside ? Would it not be 
more becoming to us to dwell upon what we do for 
ourselves, for the contemporary world, and for our 
children, than to indulge in a senseless pride in re- 
gard to what the past has done for us? If we reflect 
upon the past let it be with the intention of drawing 
from it the lesson how to utilize our lives in the 
short time of our earthly existence in order to im- 
prove humanity, in order to help bring about a 
state of affairs in which the human being will fill his 
position on earth in a more dignified manner than he 
does today, when man will show that the spark of 
divine light illumines him more brightly than an)' 
other being, and that on account of the light of 
reason with which the grace of God has presented 
him he is the master of all this sub-lunar world. 

Lamps of the Temple — 12 



178 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



THE LAW OF LIFE IN JESUS CHRIST. 



OU are wondering how you shall be able to get 



more truth, and you believe that by buying a 
few books and sitting down in your library at night, 
saving your time, you shall be able to get truth. 
You will never get truth until you give truth. Nev- 
er will you be able to attach another truth to your 
soul until the truths that you already have are in ac- 
tion, until you believe them, live them, heroically 
champion them. God's wandering angels are very 
suspicious. They come to a human soul where 
other angels have already come, and if the angels of 
truth which God has already given us have not been 
treated with proper respect, the other angels will 
not stop at our door. On they go, teaching us that 
life's great secret lies in the law of giving. That was 
the law in the life of Jesus Christ. That is His cross. 

So, the Old Testament comes with its glory in 
Jesus Christ. He is the great law, the only power- 
ful law that shall make your life and mine obedient. 
Why ? Because He is the Almighty Love. He 
comes to us so full of His tenderness, so full of His 
grace, so full of His beauty and His power, that, com- 
pelling our love, He comes to be our law, and we 
easily obey what we love ; we easily follow that to 
which our souls are attracted by affection ; and com- 
ing to us as He does, He offers Himself as a Sinai and 
a Calvary ; a law that will bring us back into obedi- 
ence ; a law that shall help us to obey itself by its 



F. W. Guxsaulus, D.D. 




THE LAW OF LIFE 



own friendly offices. You and I have been trying to 
be obedient by getting hold of this law and that and 
obeying it. It was impossible for the Jews to take 
the laws of Sinai and fail in love with them. 

The law of Sinai failed until Calvary with a per- 
sonal law came to replace it. On the very instant 
you see a man who is himself honest, true, you love 
him. Why, his truthfulness has become your law, 
and his honesty rules your soul. You can love him, 
and the very power of loving him is the power that 
keeps you obedient to that law. 

You have heard the story of the poor woman, 
within that mass of people, crowding up against 
Jesus Christ. She reached with her poor broken 
life through the crowd and she touched the hem of 
His garment. It was doubtless this very tassel, this 
line of blue. That poor woman's disease was law- 
less. She was so afflicted, not because laws have 
been obeyed, but because somewhere laws have been 
disobeyed. It was not right in this, God's universe, 
for her to be afflicted, and she put her hand through 
the crowd and touched that single blue thread, the 
hem of His garment ; and there He stood, her law, 
her righteousness, her salvation, substituting the law 
of health for her disease, pouring into her life the 
great law power of His love, until that power of law 
made her right. 

Isn't salvation a simple thing ? Here is a sick 
man, and that sick man is all lawless physically. He 
has a consciousness all through him that things are 
in a lawless condition. Now what shall be done ? 



i8o 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



Why, you must substitute for that man's lawlessness 
some kind of lawfulness, and so perhaps you take 
some medicine, and that quinine has within it- 
self something more than quinine ; it has law, the 
laws of crystallization and the laws of chemical com- 
position ; the laws which have to do with the whole 
operation of these crystals upon the system, and the 
man takes it, gets over his malaria. In all spiritual 
disease, this great Law Giver, this great law, this 
love, does medical work for human nature. O poor 
soul trying to get on with fifty laws that you can't 
obey, neither one of which you have ever fallen in love 
with. What you want is to see all these incarnate 
in something that you can love, something that will 
compel your love. That something is Jesus Christ. 
The hem of his garment is near to you and to me 
to-night. If we will only touch that thread of blue 
we shall find that law, not only to be our love, but 
to be our life. 

THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. 

Henry Hopkins, D.D. 

TN the past history of the Church there has been 
* too much of the shutting up and the shutting in 
of sacred things, to keep them sacred, we may now 
plainly see. Those who had knowledge used to 
think it too high a gift for all' of God's children. 
The few divinely appointed were its guardians, lest 
it get out among the people. There are some who 
think so now. The Bible was not the people's book, 
the bread of life for all, and even today the settled 



THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 



181 



results of criticism and science are not, it is thought 
by some, to be toid in the congregation, lest the 
sacredness of Scripture suffer. The prerogatives 
and privileges of the Christian faith were to be doled 
out through the hands of ministers or priests, and 
must be made to flow in appointed channels. Now, 
in fidelity to our first principle, to our high church 
ideas, and not in opposition to it, we need still more 
than we have done to broaden our administration of 
the Gospel. 

What is still the popular conception, in the 
churches and out of them, of the religious life? Is 
it not that religious people are those who attend the 
services and observe the sacraments of the Church, 
who worship God in the observances of certain 
forms of religious devotion, and expect to go to 
heaven ? Religion is obedience to God, but when 
religion is spoken of, most men still think of some 
act of worship. What wonder? This traditional 
meaning has been wrought into human thought in 
all the centuries of the history of the past. The 
idea of a visible and local sanctuary for divinity and 
of elaborate ceremonies of worship as the expres- 
sion of religion has been universal. The grandest 
and most enduring structures built upon this earth, 
unless it be the Pyramids, have been temples. In 
India and China, in Egypt and Greece and Italy, in 
Central and South America, they have been the 
wonders of the world. No product of man's genius, 
of his sacrifice and of his toil, has been more magnifi- 
cent than the cathedrals which, from the eleventh 



182 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



century, embodied the aspirations and expressed the 
faith of the Christians of mediaeval Europe ; but by 
their very structure they express and foster a sacra- 
mentarian religion, and necessitate a sacerdotal 
hierarchy to administer it ; they kept alive the idea 
of a localized divinity, and handed down, as they 
still do, the conception that the maintenance of 
public worship and its appliances are the main ob- 
ject and function of the Church. We know well 
enough that the fact is that there is so much of God 
in the house of God as is in us. When the people 
of God are gone out, He does not dwell in the walls 
nor in the pulpit, nor between the leaves of The 
Book. The old name given by the Fathers was a 
good name. It was " the meeting-house not the 
place where men met their fellow-men, but the place 
where God and men met and the Spirit of God was 
given to those who honored His ordinance. The 
Church is a God-inhabited society, not a building, 
not a hierarchy, not a denominational machine, but 
living men and women in whom the Spirit of God 
dwells. 

This ideal of the reality of the Church of God as 
consisting in the indwelling of the Spirit of God with 
man, not with the individual man alone, but in 
human society, rather than the ideal of a localized 
splendor, is a very radical and fruitful one. We are 
still in bondage to the old idea. The hollowness of 
the repetition of outward acts, whether it be in con- 
nection with the pomp and show of ritualism, or the 
fashionable emptiness of a rich city church, or in the 



THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 1 83 

bare forms of the simplest worship, is so evident, 
often, that men of insight and honesty turn away 
from it. Heinrich Heine said that "the one thing 
that was detestable among Jews, Protestants and 
Catholics was public worship." Richard Rothe, said 
to be one of the most large-minded and deeply 
pious of German theologians, is quoted as saying 
that " the Church as an organization for worship is 
destined to dwindle and pass away." No, not so 
long as man has an affinity for the infinite ; not so long 
as he knows himself a child of God and shares 
this consciousness with others who are God's chil- 
dren ; not while he is capable of praising God for 
what He is, and thanking Him for what He has done ; 
surely not so long as the great theme of redeeming 
love and power touches his heart and tunes his soul. 
Christianity can never abdicate her function to bring 
the soul near to God in holy contemplation and 
communion, to fix man's thoughts on eternal things, 
to cultivate his spiritual sentiments, to deepen his 
reverence, and to voice his highest joys : and to all 
this, common worship is essential. A Church which 
is always to men a house of God will not be de- 
serted, and such a Church will always be a worship- 
ing Church. But this matter of the outward "serv- 
ice " of the Church, of its routine worship, has been, 
and is, lifted into altogether wrong comparative 
prominence, so as often to be a denial of spiritual 
truth. Concerning public worship our Saviour gave 
no directions. To find in the Scripture the warrant 
for a system which is chiefly a system of public 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



worship is impossible. Our Lord founded a society. 
What was its object? To transform the whole of 
life, to produce a life pervaded and molded by the 
Spirit of God, to embody His own life perpetually 
among men. It is somewhat startling even to our 
modern Christian thought to realize that in the im- 
age given us of the ideal society, that is in the full- 
ness of time to be set up on the earth, there is no 
provision made for the appliances of worship. The 
record of the Seer is this, " And I saw no temple 
therein." If we go back of traditional ideas about 
the Church and religion, and accept Christ's idea, 
and that of the vision of the Apocalypse, of the 
New Jerusalem, we shall get hold of the truth that 
this age needs — the truth of the broad church. Our 
Lord aimed at lifting up and purifying the common 
life of common men. The Sermon on the Mount 
hasn't anything to say about going to church, but 
has a great deal to say about being the church ; that 
is, about the realities of character, the motives and 
laws of conduct. 

How sublime the apostolic conception of the 
Gospel ! " That he might gather together in one all 
things in Christ, both which are in heaven and 
which are in earth." In such a Church the ministry 
for worship cannot comprise all Christian leadership 
or priesthood. Educators, thinkers, investigators 
of nature, artists, professional men, political guides, 
these, too, shall be recognized as having a divine 
call. The editor who conducts the great daily no 
less than he who stands in the metropolitan pulpit 



THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 



i3 5 



shall be set apart to a holy ministry. Not less wor- 
ship, but more and better, and more reverence in 
the house of God ; but worship not as the chief end 
of the church organization, and reverence extended 
to all that is sacred anywhere. 

This has direct bearing upon the architecture of 
the church. The building for the house of God, 
what is it? A place set apart from all unholy uses? 
Yes, but not to be kept closed to the people all but 
one day in seven, nor confined in its adaptation to the 
uses of public worship. Let there be at the great 
centers of population places of assembly, vast and 
noble, dedicated to all Christian uses ; to the sub- 
lime worship of God by the multitude, to the free 
proclamation of the everlasting Gospel to all men ; 
set apart also to be the center and rallying-place of a 
Christian people in all times of their great enthusi- 
asms and great sorrows, to which all classes will natu- 
rally turn when all hearts are swept by the enno- 
bling passions of our humanity, by patriotism, or 
sympathy with suffering, or indignation against 
wrong ; where the leaders of men in great causes 
may be welcomed and listened to, and all interests 
that pertain to universal welfare be promoted ; 
whose uses and adaptations shall, in short, be as 
wide as the scope of Christian citizenship. That is 
a cathedral for a nineteenth century Christianity. 
We would like to dispense with the dim religious 
light and the echoing aisles ; with elaborated ar- 
rangements for separated orders of clergy and for spec- 
tacular ceremonies ; with the " bishop's throne " and 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



the paraphernalia of an outworn and undemocratic 
ecclesiasticism. For the local Church should be the 
hospitable home of the household of faith, and 
should symbolize in its structure, as the old monas- 
teries did in theirs, and as some modern buildings 
do, the breadth of the idea of the Christian society 
— touching humanity on every side, seeking to lift up 
and save the whole man. Let the " meeting-house " be 
also a workshop in which to fashion the living stones 
for the temple which is going up through all the ages. 
Anything is legitimate that contributes to that, and 
anything is essentially Christian that accomplishes 
that. The fact is that all of life belongs to God, 
and that the distinction which we need to make is 
not between the secular and the sacr-ed, but between 
that which is right and that which is wrong, that 
which is holy and that which is unholy. Call not 
thou that common or unclean which God has made 
clean. 

If the Church be indeed this, if it is pressing on 
to embrace the race, if this is the temple in which 
God is to dwell, if the Church in its ideal is human- 
ity, so that at last the world shall be the Church, 
and the Church shall be the world, then our sacra- 
ments have a holier and deeper meaning, and our 
ministry a loftier aim and a wider scope. To place 
water upon the brow of an unconscious infant is 
then to claim him as a part of that redeemed hu- 
manity of which Christ is the head. To spread the 
Lord's table is to set forth " the right and need of 
every man to feed on God."" To be a minister of 



THE CHURCH OF CHRIST 



I8 7 



Christ is to show forth love in sacrifice, is to be 
with Christ in any calling a consecrated servant of 
one's fellow-men. If this high Church, which is 
yet the broad Church, be indeed, the true Church, 
the Church of the living God, then may we not 
better understand how to behave ourselves in the 
house of God? Then old Hildebrand's idea of the 
Church and State as one is noble, though his method 
was pagan. Then the thought of the Puritans that 
every citizen shall be a Christian was true, though 
the application of it was mistaken. 

" The Church of the living God." Fealty to that 
is high churchmanship. The High Church, whose 
essence is in the form of its ministry, whose existence 
is conditioned on ranks of sacerdotal orders, whose 
insistence is on vestments and missals, on breviaries 
and times and seasons, on processions and genuflec- 
tions, on sensuous ceremonies and dim symbolism — 
from this we turn away. In this day of Gospel life 
and love and power, it is an anachronism. To re- 
vive all this is like bringing back the miracle plays, 
or decking modern business men on our streets with 
the title and armor of mediaeval knights. From 
this we turn away. But that high churchmanship 
which confesses Jesus the Christ, the Son of the 
living God ; which teaches the reality of the Church 
of the living God, and the perpetual real presence 
in it of the life of God ; which asserts the necessity 
of the new birth by the Holy Spirit of God ; the 
priesthood of all believers and the kingship of every 
saint as children of God, and which, while holding 



i88 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



fast its living unity with apostles and martyrs and 
all the saints of past time, claims for itself this demo- 
cratic age, and advances to the conquest of all races 
and the subordination of all forces for Jesus Christ 
as King. 

THE INFINITE BENEFIT OF SUFFERING. 

Brooke Foss Westcott. 

\X/E can see how, for noble natures, suffering is a 
source of strength and tenderness. For man, be- 
ing such as he is, the way of perfection is the way of 
suffering. The prospect of pain or loss or bereave- 
ment regarded from afar, disturbs and agitates ; 
but when the trial comes, there comes with it 
— or assuredly there may come with it — also a 
consciousness of fresh spiritual force which remains 
a perpetual endowment. The sadness of failure and 
disappointment, prayers frustrated, as we think, 
hopes deceived, become, even in our own experience, 
tests and revelations of our manhood. A man who 
dwells on failure with discontent condemns himself 
of littleness, We cannot be masters of ourselves 
till our sovereignty has been challenged and proved. 
The salutary shock comes on this side and that, and 
the courageous sufferer is taught the wealth of his 
resources. We, with our fragmentary and imperfect 
natures, are taught also to know our poverty and 
weakness. At one time we answer a chastening 
voice with fruitful susceptibility, and then again 
we resent the call. In any other case, however well 
we use our opportunity, we are not in aposition to 



HE CATHEDRAL OF THE SOUL 1 89 



become acquainted with more than a few lines of the 
whole lesson of life. But the sufferings of Christ, 
even as we can view them, were such as to require 
the response of every human faculty. If, as we have 
already noticed, His character was universal, so was 
his experience. He gave to the divine command, 
however spoken, the answer of perfect service, and 
gained the blessing of corresponding strength. He 
learned obedience. He acknowledged, that is, the 
breadth and depth of the Divine Will by the things 
which He suffered. 



THE CATHEDRAL OF THE SOUL. 

D. SCHELY SCHAFF, D.D. 

TN one of his fervid passages, Mr. Ruskin has said 
* that during the Middle Ages the cathedral was 
the people's Bible. The written copies of the Scrip- 
ture being hid away in convents and little preached 
from, the only Bible they had to read was the 
sanctuary in stone. Certainly the great Gothic 
temples were adapted to call men's thoughts away 
to higher things then, as they still are. That age 
has gone. The splendid memorials of art, into 
which it put so much piety and devotion, remain. 
In this later age, the church is of a different temper 
and its pious ardor feels itself summoned to express 
in other words than vast structures of stone. 

Now the Bible, in its printed copies, is the peo- 
ple's cathedral. It is the temple of revealed truth. 
It is the sanctuary of the soul. Up and down 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



through its precincts the soul walks, and worships, 
and finds God. Here the Heavenly Father makes 
known the counsels of His will. Here He dwells. 
Anthems of praise as from another sphere fill its 
courts with harmonies. The incense of the Re- 
deemer's presence leadens its atmosphere. The 
memorials of the saints look down from its walls. 
Here we are walking with God. He is in the vol- 
ume as He is in the solemn solitude of the great 
hills. 

The cartoon of Kaulbach in the Berlin Museum 
depicts in a masterly way the temper and method 
of Protestant Christianity. In it he portrays in 
groups the arts, sciences and literary pursuits of 
men. There are the astronomers, with Kepler in 
the center ; the sculptors and painters, with Raphael 
and da Vinci ; the musicians, and the poets. There 
are the navigators and geographers, with Columbus 
pointing on a globe to a continent undiscovered as 
yet, except to faith. It is the era of the Reforma- 
tion, and, above all, stands Luther, holding forth, 
high above his head, in both hands, an open volume 
on which is written the legend, "The Word of God." 
The great picture is still significant of the faith of 
the Protestant churches. 

Once a priestly order took — and in some places 
still takes— the place of the Bible. It stood be- 
tween man and his God. In its utterances he heard 
God, and before its ministrations and vestments he 
worshiped God. To us the Bible occupies this 
place, and, with its pages unfolded, the minister is 



THE CATHEDRAL OF THE SOUL 



I 9 I 



simply the expounder of its truths. Human reason 
has its place in the work of study and exposition, 
as the arm has its place in wielding the pickaxe in 
the mine. But it is not co-ordinate, or else the 
apostle would never have contrasted the unaided 
intellect of man and its failure to find out God with 
foolishness of a preached gospel and its saving effi- 
cacy. That was according to the " wisdom" or wise 
plan of God. 

As with reason, so with the so-called Christian 
consciousness, and the church. The Word of God 
is alone the visible and expressed purpose and doc- 
trine of God, which works not as by magic, but as 
applied by the Spirit in good and honest and receptive 
hearts. Attributes are ascribed to it, which lift it 
above all other agencies within the power of human 
wielding, for the discovery of the truths of provi- 
dence and redemption. Voltaire gave it a hundred 
years ; but it accredits itself now as strongly as 
ever before to the conscience of man. The other 
sacred books of the nations may be piled up against 
it, but the best that can be said is that they are as 
foothills. The writings of the sub-apostolic age are 
dwarfed plants compared with its lordly trunk and 
its far-spreading and fruitful boughs. Its truths are 
of eternal interest, portraying God and His concern 
for the soul. Like the ocean and the skies and 
other works of God, it seems not to grow old. 
Those who know it best are most emphatic in 
pronouncing it wonderful. And unto souls from 
Jerusalem to Ujiji it is cordial and food before 



192 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



which, when assimilated, the fleshly decays and the 
spiritual emerges. 

While truth must always be accepted wherever 
detected, and reverent study always be applauded, 
any system or method that strikes at the authority of 
the sacred volume, and puts some other authority as 
co-ordinate with it, be that tradition, reason, or the 
Christian consciousness, is a gash in the vitals of Pro- 
testant Christianity. If alleged difficulties be found 
to involve real mistakes, the Scriptures still remain 
the message of God to man, and are the only safe and 
reliable guide to the soul. 

In Milan, the cathedral is in the city's center. It 
looks like a spotless angel come down from the 
heavens. Begun in 1386 and completed in 1805, the 
architect unknown, the builders many, it stands 
before the eye as a perfect work of grace and beauty. 

The proportions are immense — 477 feet long by 
183 feet wide ; the nave 155 feet high, the ceiling sup- 
ported by more than fifty pillars. The spire is 360 
feet high. They say that all the parts are not in 
pure Gothic style. But what boots that ! The very 
roof above is of chaste marble slabs, not a part of it 
of wood which might perish. Within the Duomo 
one walks to and fro, quieted, subdued, solemnized 
by the brilliant and mellow lights from the windows, 
the aspect of the golden cross suspended above the 
altar, the harmonies of the organ, the lordly spaces, 
the elegant grace of the architecture. With a guide 
at your side, much that was hidden behind symbol 
and legend is open to the mind. From the spire one 



A FLASK OF PRECIOUS OINTMENT 193 



beholds the city far beneath, and the garden of two 
thousand pinnacles and spires of the temple itself, 
each crowned with a statue of saint or angel. And 
when the mists roll aside, one sees far beyond to the 
north the Alps soaring high into the deep blue and 
sunken in immovable foundations. They say it is 
the most splendid view obtained from any architec- 
tural work of man. Like unto this beautiful sanctu- 
ary is the Bible, the cathedral of the soul. Within 
its hallowed precincts, the soul finds God, walks with 
God, feels God. Unlocked doors spring open at un- 
expected places, whereon is written "Jeremiah," or 
"Leviticus," or "Philemon," when the soul searches 
on reverently, and as the necessities come. 



LIFE A FLASK OF PRECIOUS OINTMENT, 

Jenkyn Lloyd Jones. 

DEMEMBER that neither spacious rooms nor 
1 ^ attractive surroundings, no nor even loving 
husband and wife and devoted children, unless they 
have tendrils that send their nourish-seeking fibers 
into the soil of society, state and nation, can make a 
home. Let me repeat, better a home in the alley 
than a house on the boulevard. If you cramp the 
wants of your soul you can do without a lawn, but 
not without those social and spiritual helps to cheer- 
fulness and usefulness which I will call church, not- 
withstanding the cruel abuse and pathetic failure 
that so load down the word. 

But the central truth of my subject and text is 

Lamps of the Temple — 13 



i 9 4 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



yet unreached. Life, after all, is saved only by giv- 
ing it. It is the stern law of the universe that he 
that "seeketh his life shall lose it, and he that loseth 
it shall find it." Every " talent wrapped in a nap- 
kin " to keep it safe for the Master will only bring 
disapprobation, disgrace, defeat. Life — whatever it 
is — is not mere duration. Prolonged existence is 
about as cheap a thing as a mortal ever set out to 
win. Methuselah, with his fabled 969 years, that 
and nothing more in history, is simply a bore com- 
pared with Shelley, whose lifeless body was cast 
upon the Italian beach before he was 32. Every true 
philosopher, every true lover of life, will say with 
the old Celtic bard, " Let me love and thrill or let 
me die." I do not know what life is, but I believe 
it is something to be given, something to be in- 
vested. It is some flask of precious ointment 
intended to anoint ; some sacred reality. Let us, 
like Mary, prefer to break the flask than to waste 
the ointment in misuse. I believe that the self-for- 
getful life is the vigorous life. Botanists tell us that 
the aromatic plants are the hardiest. Thyme, mint 
and sage survive the lettuce and the cabbage, and 
so history tells us that the aromatic men and women, 
those who fill their atmosphere with the aroma of 
helpfulness,, the fragrance of love and thoughtful- 
ness, are the ones that survive the longest, other 
things being equal. 

Fenelon, Aristotle, Milton, Cuvier and Cervantes, 
splendid workers, over-reached the sixties. Petrarch, 
Linnae, Lock, Handel, Galileo, Roger Bacon and 



A FLASK OF PRECIOUS OINTMENT 1 95 



Charles Darwin lived into the seventies ; while Plato 
and Goethe, Buffon and Herschel, Carlyle, Newton 
and Voltaire all died in their youth beyond the 
eighties ; while Sophocles, Titian, and the tre- 
mendous worker Michael Angelo, counted their 
ninety years and over, and nobody ever thinks of 
them as old men — much less as dead men. The para- 
ble of talents, I believe, holds true in this great 
thing of life as it is true in the small thing of dol- 
lars. " To him that hath shall be given and he shall 
have abundance, but from him that hath not even 
that which he hath shall be taken away." When a 
man or woman begins to make a business of health- 
preserving and life-saving it is the beginning of the 
end. I believe in life, in living, and I like those who 
make a strong battle for it ; but it should be that 
they might finish the task they have begun. I re- 
member that I am dealing with a very complex 
problem, and if the analogy of the plants did not 
hold true, and if premature death was the price of 
living, still in all sober earnestness let us pray for 
life notwithstanding. 

We are not here to occupy a house for seventy years, 
but we are here to build a house, improve a house, 
or at least renovate an old one, so as to make it 
more habitable for the next tenant and then get out 
of the way. What if the soldier on the field, where 
liberty is at stake, should quietly steal away lest his 
life be shortened and his future usefulness be cur- 
tailed ! What if Starr King, when California was 
on the brink of rebellion, had said, " Let treason 



ig6 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



triumph, I must save my throat and stay awhile 
longer ! " What if Jesus had quietly slipped away 
between two days and escaped that tragic end on 
Calvary ! No, friends, there is something higher than 
living, and that is life, and the true economy of life 
calls upon us to sanctify the body and honor its 
claims, so far as possible, to fertilize the mind and 
feed the soul in every way possible, to avoid the 
distractions and dissipations, to concentrate the 
forces on those lines upon which our being was made 
to run, and then do it. Do it ungrudgingly, unhesi- 
tatingly. The coward who runs away is about as 
likely to be hit as he who stays. If we are to fall in 
battle, let none of us be shot in the back. Let us 
face the music, though that music be the great mar- 
tial chorus of the world, booming cannon, bursting 
shell and hissing ball. The only way to save our 
talent is to spend it, invest it ; 

It is the children's bread I break; 
He trusts me with it for their sake; 
(Hunger I must if none it shares) 
It is but mine when it is theirs. 

Yes, life is wasted only by maladministration, by 
false investments ; life is ever saved when divinely in- 
vested. There is a success that is beautiful in earth's 
failures. Blessed is the triumph of the engineer who 
burns the decks of his steamer in order that it may 
touch the shore and save the crew. Yes, splendidly 
did John Maynard, the Lake Erie pilot, when, mid 
choking flames, he responded to the captain's call 
with a cheerful "Ay, ay, sir!" and then with 



A FLASK OF PRECIOUS OINTMENT 197 

another turn of the wheel brought the boat to shore 
and himself to that life that is above, beyond and 
independent of all death. We read the story of the 
Birkenhead, of how the soldiers quietly stood aside 
that the boats might be left free for the women and 
children ; how 138 of them went down with the old 
ship, and we think that some exceptional stroke, al- 
most a miraculous revelation in the face of an ab- 
normal demand. But I am not sure but that 
something harder than that presents itself to you 
every day you live. Every demand of duty in every 
call of life comes the strain which compels you to de- 
cide whether you will invest or board. Will you 
give your life to the great banker who will double it, 
or will you wrap it in a napkin and thus lose it ? 

A final thought — I have spoken of my belief that 
the real life is prolonged by living, and that however 
it ends that is our duty. It is useless to say to the 
engineer who has a heavy freight at the foot of the 
grade, "Now, this engine will last longer if you never 
let it carry more than sixty pounds of steam," while 
the fact is it takes 120 pounds to get the train up 
that grade. It is his business and the business of 
the engine to move that train. Now, in this thought 
there is rest as well as life. This is faith as well as 
courage. Here is where the thought of God, the in- 
finite, comes to the support of man, the finite. Nay, 
in this giving of life we find that economy that 
pours the omnipotence of God into our weakness, 
and we know with Jesus that " I and my Father 
are one." We are now as safe in His bosom as 



198 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



the cloud is in the sky. We are as willing to face 
whatever changes may come as the river is to take 
its plunge over the rocks, knowing that there, as 
here, it will be borne irresistibly on to its home in the 
ocean calm, When we find this economy of life we 
have found that life that knows no death ; not only 
for ourselves but for our dear ones and near ones. 
Yes, for the prodigal mid the swine, the lowliest 
heathen and hardest pagan come within the scope 
of this economic law of God. They find their im- 
mortality not on the account of some few things they 
have done or left undone. They are to know eter- 
nal verities and to enter deathless realities, not by 
virtue of any bill of exceptions in their particular be- 
half, but by the necessity of the universe, the will of 
the great God who has so ordained that nothing 
shall be wasted. To know Him is to lose all our 
small concerns. 

As we look up and not down for the uses of the cup we 
welcome, 

Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go, 
Be our joys three parts pain 
Strive and hold cheap the strain; 

Learn, nor account the pang ; dare never grudge the throe. 



THE JUGGERNAUT OF MONOPOLY. 

Cardinal Gibbons. 

QURELY men do not amass wealth for the sole 
^ pleasure of counting their bonds and contemplat- 
ing their gold in secret. No ! They acquire it in the 
hope that it will contribute to their rational comfort 



THE JUGGERNAUT OF MONOPOLY 1 99 



and happiness. Now, there is no enjoyment in life 
so pure and so substantial as that which springs 
from the reflection that others are made content 
and happy by our benevolence. And we are speak- 
ing here, not of the benevolence of gratuitous 
bounty, but of fair-dealing tempered with benignity. 
Considerate Kindness is like her sister Mercy : 

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath : it is twice bless'd ; 
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes ; 
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes 
The throned monarch better than his crown. 

We are happy to say that commercial princes 
answering the description of the English bard do not 
wholly belong to an ideal and imaginary world, but 
are easily found in our great centers of commerce ; 
and if the actual condition of the average wage- 
worker in this country is a safe criterion by which 
we are to estimate the character and public spirit 
of American employers, we believe that an impar- 
tial judgment will concede to the majority of them 
the honorable title of just, fair-dealing, and benevo- 
lent men. In our visits to England, Scotland, Ire- 
land, and the continent of Europe, we have studied 
the condition of the laboring classes, and we are 
persuaded that the American workman is better 
paid and fed, better clothed and housed, and usually 
better instructed, at least in the elements of useful 
knowledge, than his brethren across the Atlantic. 

Instances of genuine sympathy and beneficence 
exercised by the heads of business concerns to- 



200 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



ward those in their employ could be easily multi- 
plied. Some time ago the head of a Baltimore 
manufacturing company received a message an- 
nouncing the total destruction by a flood of his 
uninsured mills, involving a loss of three hundred 
and sixty-five thousand dollars. On receiving the 
news, his first exclamation was, " What a loss to 
so many families ! Here are two hundred men 
thrown out of employment ! " Of the personal 
injury he sustained, he uttered not a word. 

But while applauding the tender feelings and 
magnanimity of so many capitalists, we are con- 
strained, in the interests of truth, humanity, and 
religion, to protest against the heartless conduct of 
others whose number, for the honor of our country, 
is, we hope, comparatively small. 

When men form themselves into a business corpo- 
ration, their personality is overshadowed, and their 
individual responsibility is lessened. And for this 
reason, many will assent in their corporate capacity 
to measures from which the dread of public opinion, 
or the dictates of conscience, would prompt them 
as individuals to shrink. But perhaps the injury is 
all the more keenly felt by the victims of oppression 
when inflicted by a corporation, as it is easier to 
obtain redress from one responsible proprietor than 
from a body of men, most of whom may be un- 
known or inaccessible to the sufferers. 

No friend of his race can contemplate without 
painful emotions those heartless monopolists exhib- 
iting a grasping avarice which has dried up every 



FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD • 201 



sentiment of sympathy, and a sordid selfishness 
which is deaf to the cries of distress. Their sole 
aim is to realize large dividends without regard to 
the paramount claims of justice and Christian char- 
ity. These trusts and monopolies, like the car of 
Juggernaut, crush every obstacle that stands in their 
way. 

FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD IN CHRIST. 

F. A. Noble, D.D. 

T LOOK forward to a time when, not in the spirit 
A of that sentimental philosophy which would 
speculate the moral and the immoral into indiscrimi- 
nate confusion, nor of that refining Pantheism in 
which the All is exalted that God may be de- 
based, but in the sincere devoutness of reverence, 
and trust, and love, and faith - in the true interest 
of the Higher Life — the questions at issue shall be, 
not whether the world was made in six days, but 
whether, having been made as it is, men are using 
it for the highest and holiest purposes ; not whether 
the bush ever burned in the presence of the awed 
Moses, but whether, for him who has an eye to see, 
every tree and every shrub is not aflame with the 
glory of God ; not whether the sun ever paused in 
mid-heaven to aid the warring Joshua, but whether all 
suns and systems of suns, all stars and constellations 
of stars, are not forever the waiting servants of the 
wrestling human race ; not whether, in long gone ages, 
the still, small voice penetrated the attent souls of 



202 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



priests and prophets, and apostles, revealing truths 
and inspiring utterances above the range of the human 
but whether there be not clear heavenly notes still 
lingering on the vibrant air, and tones celestial and 
divinely burdened for all who have an ear to hear ; 
not whether sin came into the heart through some 
mysterious process of an original fall, but whether, 
being in the heart as it palpably is, and circulating 
its leprous taint through all the veins and arteries 
of our being, — blinding the eyes, weakening the 
hands, thwarting the will, poisoning the affections, 
destroying all peace, — it be not the wisest and best 
thing to get it expelled out of the heart as speedily 
as possible ; not whether there be men of so much 
culture and refinement that they do not need the 
Lord's Christ, but whether the highest and purest 
can ever bring enough of the Divine One, with His 
holy life and light and love into their souls ; not 
whether the Cross of Calvary is efficacious for the 
saving of a sinner from his sins, but whether there 
can be anything, constitution, law, custom, art, 
science, book, home, power, office, shop, mill, in the 
highest sense divinely true and good, until it has 
been sprinkled with the Redeemer's blood, and 
leavened with the Redeemer's spirit ; not whether it 
be worth while to seek to escape from a far-off and 
future hell, but whether any soul can afford to lin- 
ger for a solitary moment in the hell of the here 
and now ; not whether a single faculty be God's 
monitor within, but whether all faculties may not 
be inlets of divine illumination and organs of heav- 



BOOKS 



203 



enly appeal and heavenly approach ; not whether 
one day in seven has been set apart for the hallowed 
uses of spiritual contemplation and rest, but whether 
all days, and the services of all days, may not be 
sublimed into psalms of devout praise to the benig- 
nant Father; not whether it be possible to gain 
near access and hold sweet communion with the 
Crucified One through the simple sacrament of 
bread and wine, but whether every act of our life 
may not be so performed as to keep Him in constant 
remembrance, and our own heart in a blessed fel- 
lowship of the spirit ; not whether a small capital of 
trust and righteousness will suffice to give heirship 
to the heavenly inheritance, but whether it be not 
the crowning wisdom to have in vital and ever-in- 
creasing possession that faith, and virtue, and know- 
ledge, and temperance, and patience, and godliness, 
and brotherly kindness, and charity, through which 
an abundant entrance shall be ministered unto us, 
into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ. 



HE first thing, then, that we have to choose for 



ourselves and our children is not what books 
shall we read, but more profoundly than that, what 
kind or type of person do we choose to be ? A wise 
man is a many-sided being, and since the roots for 
the making of many natures are in most of us, which 



BOOKS! BOOKS! BOOKS! 



Charles F. Dole. 




204 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



kind of nature will we cultivate? Which kind of 
nature will we vote to let dominate ? 

Let us agree in voting that we will altogether 
break up and harrow over and keep down whatever 
tendencies in us there are towards base and low 
tastes, whatever soils manly or womanly purity. 
The base nature we will not abide. We will give it 
nothing to feed upon. Let us vote again that we 
will not let the part of our nature rule that turns 
everything into amusement and sport. We will make 
the pleasure-loving part of us serve as it ought, but 
not rule, as we would not feed on dainties and pas- 
try. Then we will agree that we must encourage in 
us the noble nature, by which we mean that part of 
us which reverences right, follows truth, obeys duty, 
does deeds of friendliness; that is, We choose the 
just and humane type of nature and we propose to 
cultivate it, as a farmer prefers to break up weeds 
and cultivate wheat. Let us also propose the trust- 
ful nature as opposed to the cynical, doubtful spe- 
cies of man. For the men of faith have been always 
those who have done the world good, and whom we 
always need, both as men of affairs and as patriots. 
But the men of faith are religious men, i. e., those 
who believe in good and not in evil. Seen here is 
the kind of person or nature that out of all the va- 
rious kinds that we have seen we not merely approve, 
but choose to cultivate. Or if we have unfortunately 
started with some false or wrong type, we propose 
to try as far as we can to change and alter it in the 
direction of the just, noble, friendly and trustful 



BOOKS 



205 



type of man, and I do not need to say that man has 
the power to a very great extent to make himself 
that which he decidedly chooses or votes to be. 

We are ready now to return to our books and see 
better how to use them. We had been reading be- 
fore very much as accident led us, or by the advice 
of others. We had a mass of material, possibly ex- 
cellent, but without a directing, assimilating force to 
use it to advantage, as though a man had a lumber 
wharf at his command without knowing what he 
wanted to make. But now we know what to make. 
In the midst of the most heterogeneous material, 
there is now at work a selective force. One knows 
now, as if by instinct, what is good for him, as an 
athlete, building his body for strength or endurance, 
may distinguish what kinds of food are wholesome. 
So in the idea of a special type or character of na- 
ture which one seeks to develop and cultivate, there 
is a constant and silent test of the value of various 
books. Does any particular book serve to confuse 
my moral ideals, blur distinctiveness of right and 
wrong, lower the sacredness of life, or makn life seem 
vapid or trivial ? Does it drift toward a vain and 
cheap worldliness? Does it pander to passion? 
In short, does the reading the book depress instead 
of lifting the level of life? I now feel the subtle in- 
fluence. The book may or may not have the same 
influence on another person. It might or might not 
influence me at another time. Nevertheless it is not 
the intellectual food that I want now. On the other 
hand, the book that another may find useless may 



206 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



chance to serve me. I can remember when a boy, 
being advised by an older friend against reading 
Victor Hugo's " Les Miserables." It was not suita- 
ble, he said, for a boy. But I had already made the 
acquaintance of the noble Bishop ; I had caught 
the thread of gold that undoubtedly runs through 
the book, and I could not put aside what I knew was 
doing me good. My conscience, therefore, did not 
respond to his warning. In the same way the stories 
like Thackeray's or George Eliot's, which at one 
period may minister to the love of novelty, like a 
journey to a new country, and may accordingly 
even contain an element of danger to the inexpert 
enced, at another period may teach wisdom and 
deepen the spring of life. It is the difference be- 
tween the boy going to see the world for " the fun 
of it," and the disciplined youth who goes with a 
noble purpose already within him. 

We speak here especially of what we may call the 
atmosphere of this reading, or the subtle spirit that 
makes one writer like Emerson differ from another 
like Taine, or that separates the English novel from 
the French type of story. There is also much read- 
ing for the purpose of information, to farther the 
facts of science, of history, or of life in general. But 
the principle which we have established will be a 
guide to determine the proportions of our reading. 
We do not want it to be all facts, all history, or all 
science, any more than we want our food to be all 
fat or all lean. We are working to make a complete 
and healthy man. We want, therefore, to leave out 



BOOKS 



207 



no normal element. We deprecate what happened 
to Mr. Darwin, who followed science and facts to 
the loss, as he tells us, of the poetic faculty. But 
we want the sentiment and the poetry as we want 
the sound moral sense and the temper of religion. 
And each part of our nature must have its due nour- 
ishment. We must turn from facts, which would 
either weary us or make us near-sighted, and refresh 
our sight with the everlasting hills, the depths of the 
sky, the visions of things unseen and eternal. The 
less easily we choose to do this, the less we love po- 
etry by nature, the more should we, as Mr. J. S. 
Mill tells us that he did, cultivate the love of it. 
That which we have not we need to make us com- 
plete. So with religion, we want that which the 
largest natures have had. We will therefore take 
the more pains with the proportions of our reading. 

All this goes of itself when once we have deter- 
mined what type of man or woman we desire to 
make of ourselves. 

It will come about after awhile that we shall 
learn to find intellectual food and stimulus every- 
where. The digestion becomes stronger ; the as- 
similating powers more ready to seize on what they 
want. By and by we may do what was promised in 
the New JTestament — take up serpents, and if we 
drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt us. That is 
to say, the life processes shall throw evil aside or 
even turn it to use. The mind shall be armed by 
its health against bad books and unwholesome 
literary companionship, and while not choosing to 



208 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



encounter evil, shall be able, as the physician may 
enter the slums and come out unscathed by fever, so 
also to go, if on occasion it must, unpolluted into 
any atmosphere of dangerous books. 

Let us now make certain simple suggestions. 
You know how the merchant, reading his paper, 
takes in at a glance whatever, out of its wilderness 
of news, bears upon his own business, whether 
leather or stocks or ships. Suppose now that I have 
some distinct thought that runs through my reading 
as the merchant's business runs through his. Sup- 
pose it is merely a side interest, so be it is worthy. 
For example : suppose, like an old lady of my ac- 
quaintance, who in a long invalidism kept bright to 
the last, — suppose a young person were to seek to 
inform himself upon the subject of temperance or 
the cause of contemporary French history or South- 
ern affairs or Indian rights, or upon the woman 
suffrage movement or civil service reform ; suppose 
his eye learns to catch whatever in the papers bears 
upon his subject, the facts, the principles, both the 
pros and the cons; or suppose he is bound to find 
and to preserve every noble story or beautiful verse. 
Do you not see that even the newspapers now cease 
to be chaos and rubbish ? There will be some grist for 
his hopper every day. The fine print of the shipping 
news will stir his imagination with its stories of 
tragedy and heroism. 

Again, grant, what is generally true, that the 
higher nature in all of us is most stunted and least 
fed. It wants, therefore, extra care and nutriment. 



BOOKS 



209 



Let one therefore make the rule every day, or at 
least at stated times, to read some fine uplifting sen- 
tences, such as the great masters of the higher life 
will furnish in plenty — Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, 
Emerson, certain hymns and poems. There must be 
some kind of Bible reading, if not the conventional 
sort, at least that which satisfies the man's higher 
nature. Let one then always have some book by 
him that meets this need. Let him also mark in the 
ordinary books whatever passages serve the same 
higher purposes. He will presently be surprised to 
discover in biographies, in histories, in stories, how 
much there is of the stuff that reveals and teaches 
God. 

By and by one may hope the wide world and all 
life will become a grand book. Indeed, the great 
books are only true as they mirror life itself. The 
great books are not ends in themselves. 

Reading, even of the best books, is not the high- 
est function of man. The ages of the greatest 
genius, such as those when Sophocles or Shake- 
speare flourished, have not been periods of the great- 
est reading. To read life, to read nature, to read 
men, is better than books, as it is this which has 
made books. 

Again, as before, you shall see in nature and life 
according to the kind of person that you are. As, 
the more you are of a man the more and the nobler 
quality you can see in Shakespeare's mirror of 
nature and life — as you go on in your enjoyment of 
$hakespeare from the boy's feeble understanding of 

Lamps of the Temple — 14 



2IO 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE. 



a few incidents upward to the conception of a 
universe swayed by righteous laws, so you shall rise 
to find grander and holier interpretation in all life. 
As the diseased or vicious mind sees evil powers at 
war in nature and the rule of the strong, so the 
trained and healthy sight will see divine and moral 
order. You cannot be well and normal and see the 
universe ajar. You cannot be true and noble and 
see the universe immoral or senseless. The uni- 
verse will be found in tune, making music as soon 
as the strings of your little life are in tune. But do 
not think that there can be any true music, however 
sweetly poets sing or grand souls interpret the re- 
sounding harmonies of life, unless your own life is 
first brought into accord. 

Finally this is the aim at which all true education 
is directed. The age in which we live is no dull or 
common period. The destinies of generations de- 
pend on how we solve the vast perplexing problems 
of government, society, labor and capital, poverty 
and crime. There are those who still shake their 
heads over the experience of our democratic Amer- 
ica. We are already, they say, coming to be a gov- 
ernment of rings and lobbies and monopolies and 
gigantic corporations and trusts. We are big, they 
say, without having brains or goodness to match 
and control our big bulk. They are partly right. 
There are people enough in America who are 
trying, like so many animals, merely to enjoy 
themselves. There are people enough whose 
chief aim is to make themselves rich. There are 



A STRONG CHRISTIAN CHARACTER 211 

altogether too few people who are patriots, too 
few with generous aims to serve the state or 
mankind. We need to change the proportions 
in our public life. We want volunteers everywhere 
of the kind of men and women whom we reverence 
wherever we find them in history, of the stamp of 
Philip Sidney and Henry Lane and the Adamses 
and Washington, noble, incorruptible. We look to 
our schools and colleges to train youth of this sort. 
We care almost nothing to be told merely how 
much our youth know or what books they have 
read, as we care nothing to be told the bills of fare 
of dinners already devoured. What we care su- 
premely about is to see well nurtured, whole natured, 
healthy, true and strong manhood and womanhood, 
with lofty, serious, generous purpose to do worthily 
the work of God in this world that calls so loudly 
for God's work to be done. 



HOW TO GET A STRONG CHRISTIAN 
CHARACTER. 

T. DeWitt Talmage, D.D. 

DUT, my friends, you need to be aggressive 
Christians, and not like those persons who spend 
their lives in hugging their Christian graces and 
wondering why they do not make any progress. 
How much robustness of health would a man have 
if he hid himself in a dark closet ? A great deal of 
the piety of the day is too exclusive. It hides itself. 
It needs more fresh air, more out door exercise. 



212 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



There are many Christians who are giving their 
entire lives to self-examination. They are feeling 
their pulses to see what is the condition of their 
spiritual health. How long would a man have 
robust physical health if he kept all the days and 
weeks and months and years of his life feeling his 
pulse instead of going out into active, earnest, 
every-day work? 

I was once amid the wonderful, bewitching cactus 
growths of North Carolina. I never was more be- 
wildered with the beauty of flowers, and yet when I 
would take up one of these cactuses and pull the 
leaves apart the beauty was ail gone. You could 
hardly tell that it ever had been a flower. And 
there are a great many Christian people in this day 
just pulling apart their Christian experiences to see 
what there is in them, and there is nothing attract- 
ive left. This style of self-examination is a damage 
instead of an advantage to their Christian character. 
I remember when I was a boy I used to have a small 
piece in the garden that I called my own, and I 
planted corn there, and every few days I would 
pull it up to see how fast it was growing. Now 
there are a great many Christian people in this day 
whose self-examination merely amounts to the pull- 
ing up of that which they only yesterday or the day 
before planted. 

Oh, my friends, if you want to have a stalwart 
Christian character, plant it right out of doors in the 
great field of Christian usefulness, and though storms 
may come upon it and though the hot sun of trial 



A STRONG CHRISTIAN CHARACTER 21 3 



may consume it, it will thrive until it becomes a 
great tree, in which the fowls of Heaven may have 
their habitation. I have no patience with these 
flower pot Christians. They keep themselves under 
shelter, and all their Christian experience in a small 
exclusive circle, when they ought to plant it in the 
great garden of the Lord, so that the whole atmos- 
phere could be aromatic with their Christian useful- 
ness. What we want in the Church of God is more 
brawn of piety. 

The century plant is wonderfully suggestive and 
wonderfully beautiful, but I never look at it with- 
out thinking of its parsimony. It lets whole gener- 
ations go by before it puts forth one blossom. So 
I have really more heartfelt admiration when I see 
the dewy tears in the blue eyes of the violets, for 
they come every spring. My Christian friends, time is 
going by so rapidly that we cannot afford to be idle. 

A recent statistician says that human life now 
has an average of only thirty-two years. From 
these thirty-two years you must subtract all the 
time you take for sleep and the taking of food and 
recreation ; that will leave you about sixteen years. 
From those sixteen years you must subtract all the 
time you are necessarily engaged in the earning of 
a livelihood ; that will leave you about eight years. 
From those eight years you must take all the days 
and weeks and months — all the length of time that 
is passed in childhood and sickness, leaving you 
about one year in which to work for God. Oh, my 
soul, wake up ! 



214 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



A TRUE REVIVAL OF RELIGION. 



Henry Ward Beecher. 



REVIVAL of religion is a revival of impulse in 



its earlier stages. If emotion, however, is 
taught in any church, to lead on to a higher state, 
and the Church is drilled to it ; if the extraordinary 
work that is performed in a revival of religion is a 
part of the daily and weekly routine of church life, 
we can conceive that a church may be in such a 
state, that, so far as its own self is concerned, it 
will always live in what is better than a revival. 
The term revival is usually attached to the freshness 
of the beginning impulse ; whereas a condensed 
methodical church life ought to have it in the whole 
force and continuity of habit. I hold that where a 
church is living a really Christian life there is noth- 
ing so converting as for persons from without to 
come into the community of that church and see its 
piety. We hear enough about piety — there 
are sermons and instructions enough on that sub- 
ject ; but the most converting influence, I believe, 
to-day, under heaven, is that which is brought 
to bear upon a sinner who, let alone, not exhorted, 
not tormented or compelled, stands in the midst 
of a prayer-meeting or conference-meeting, and 
hears the testimony of Christian men, who, uncon- 
scious, without any other purpose than that of un- 
folding the rich treasure of the experience that is in 
them, open up what the Lord has done for them, 
what God's grace has wrought upon their sorrows, 




REARING PARENTS 



215 



what the divine sustaining power has been to them 
in their troubles, and how the Lord has lifted up the 
light of His countenance upon them when they were 
set aside on beds of sickness. A man listening to 
the actuality of real religion has a work performed 
on him that no amount of pulpit exhortation 
could ever secure. 

So, impulse ripened is better than impulse raw ; 
but impulse raw is better than nothing, and through 
every stage of unfolding impulse ought to be con- 
tinued ; there are certain elements in it that are like 
the leaves of a tree. The fruit could not ripen if it 
were not for the freshly coming leaves. 



HE land is full of schools for the training- of ch.il- 



dren, but where is the school for the training of 
parents? No responsibility is more sacred than that 
of parenthood, but it is evident, to any careful ob- 
server, that many are by no means fitted for their 
trust ; they are callous and crude, as unskillful as 
novices at the jack-plane or telegraph-knobs. Many 
children grow up like wild flowers. They are candi- 
dates for the penitentiary from their birth. In 
many a home, even where the children enjoy that 
heritage better than name or fame, the heritage of 
good blood, there is such a lack of training, or 
training is so defective, that the children enter on 
the responsibilities of life handicapped. In many 



REARING PARENTS. 



John Love, Jr., D.D. 




2l6 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



cases childhood is blighted, robbed of spontaneity, 
because parents had not been trained. Some facts 
are in clanger of being overlooked, and need occa- 
sional emphasis. Parents must learn the necessity 
of being recognized as authority in their homes. 
Childien are sharpers,— philosophers in epitome, — 
they take their bearings with wonderful sagacity, 
and soon learn who holds the reins. It seems nat- 
ural for children to want their own way. No trait 
more quickly displays itself than wilfulness, except 
in the cases of those dear little ones we read about, 
who are " just too good to live," and are early trans- 
planted. A vigorous average child will be apt to 
assert itself at a very tender age. Babes in the 
cradle have sometimes been masters. Many a time 
has parental blindness made a wrong diagnosis. 
" Poor little thing ; it has the colic ! " when really it 
was only an attack of temper, needing not so much 
a dose of anise-seed or chamomile, as a little parent- 
al firmness. Unless a parent gains control, he will 
be under control ; some will must predominate in the 
little kingdom of the household. Let the parent 
keep the sceptre in his own hands. There was but 
one babe to whose sceptre parenthood was ordained 
to bend — the Babe of Bethlehem. 

Obedience lies at the very basis of good govern- 
ment. The parent who does not control will fail 
not only of true, filial love but even of respect. Not 
force but firmness is demanded ; that government 
which needs to be bolstered up with a rod, is pitia- 
bly weak. Slippers were designed to be worn on the 



REARING PARENTS 



217 



feet, not to dust the clothing of luckless youngsters. 
The best authority is that which grows out of the 
strength of parental character and parental love. It 
is possible that children may dread far more a 
wound to parental feelings than punishment. Par- 
ents need to be trained in self-control. It is a grand 
attainment for any one ; an indispensable condition 
of good rulership. " He that ruleth his own spirit is 
greater than he that taketh a city," but heroes in do- 
mestic life are rare. Parents expect children to control 
their moods and feelings, and yet they themselves 
too often are bond-slaves of their own impulses. If 
out of sorts, they show it ; if things go wrong out- 
side they carefully conceal the fact till they reach 
home, and then v there is unreserve — they free their 
minds. " Home is a place to unbend " indeed, but 
not a place for a tornado. It is well " to keep two 
bears " in the house, but miserable policy to be a bear 
yourself. A growling father, an irritable, fidgety 
mother, may make a home a purgatory rather than 
the paradise it ought to be. Have not parents rights 
in their own home ? Yes ; but so have the children 
the God-designed right to be happy. If anywhere a 
parent should be cheery and kind and thoughtful, it 
is there. 

Parents often forget the need of patience. A strik- 
ing definition of this grace was once given by the 
lamented Henry Ward Beecher — " Patience is self- 
control at the point of desire and the point of suf- 
fering." Its sublimest illustration is found in Him, 
who, even when reviled, reviled not again. Chil- 



2l8 



I 

LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



dren will be troublesome ; they have a genius for 
doing the wrong thing, a rare gift in undoing and 
disarranging, in distracting any good housekeeper. 
They are restless, mischievous ; they will pinch on 
the sly. It is very probable that there were just 
such passes between Cain and Abel in their boy- 
hood. Every child passes through a period of ani- 
malhood, when more nervous energy is exercised 
than mental. The dear little fellows that are al- 
ways good, that keep their hands folded and look 
heavenly, that never did anything, never will do 
anything. A colt that will patiently submit to the 
harness at once would make a poor, spiritless horse. 
Any child that has mettle in him, that gives prom- 
ise of accomplishing something, will be frisky. If 
parents have become prematurely old, it is no rea- 
son why their children should. Mature deacons are 
a benediction, sometimes, but deliver us from the 
little ones. God has ordained seasons in nature — 
they are found in human nature as well. Alas for 
that little one that has skipped the summer of his 
childhood, and, by a wresting of divine laws, has 
gone from spring to autumn ! Who wants soda- 
water that won't bubble up and fizz ? Where there 
is vitality there must be effervescence, sparkle, 
freshness. It is the restless, active children, that 
even in their sleep play marbles or dress their dolls, 
that give promise of usefulness when they grow up. 
Let parents learn patience and recognize facts — 
facts that are such by divine purpose and provi- 
dence. Let them rejoice in children that are nat- 



AN INTELLECTUAL STIMULUS 2ig 



ural, not " goody-goody." Geometry is not learned 
in a day. Culture and character, like that of mind, 
takes time. Ripeness has seasons. Peaches are 
not plucked in the spring; they belong to the 
autumn-tide. Prudence, thoughtfulness, stability, 
are not to be found in life's spring-time. But 
authority, self-government and patience are incom- 
plete and defective unless supplemented by personal 
piety. Children are a gift from the Lord, and the 
home should be a training- place for heaven; it 
should be a sanctuary in miniature. The family- 
altar should have a place in every home. Every 
parent should be set apart for domestic priesthood. 
Parental example should reproduce the Christ-life. 
There are children, alas ! who are converted, not 
through the influence of home, but in spite of it. 
One of the most attractive pictures which Bunyan 
has drawn is that of Christiana leading her children 
with her into the Eternal City. The best place to 
prepare for the duties of parenthood is that of Mary 
at Jesus' feet. 



BIBLE AN INTELLECTUAL STIMULUS. 

John Henry Barrows, D.D. 

^l^HILE we rejoice that there is so much study of 
the Bible to-day and such true conceptions of 
its spirit and office, it is also noteworthy and deplora- 
ble that many people of superficial culture have 
not learned its value even as a stimulus to the mind. 
No other study is equally quickening to the intel- 



220 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



lectual powers ; no other study will furnish such 
intellectual pleasure ; no other study is fitted to give 
such intellectual satisfaction. It is not the small 
minds of the world that have yielded such homage 
to the Word of God, but the master intellects of our 
race. We cannot understand the many-sided wis- 
dom of Shakespeare without noticing its thousand 
contacts with Biblical truths. It has been truly 
said of Milton that he was a Hebrew in heart, and 
although the foremost of classic poets, he prized 
the Hebrew prophets with their majestic, unaffected 
style above the oratory of Greece and Rome. 
Daniel Webster attributed whatever was excellent in 
his speech to his thorough knowledge of the Scrip- 
tures. Whatever may be said of the late Matthew 
Arnold, none will dispute his superb intellectual 
fitness for literary criticism. He knew what was 
best in human writing and dared to measure him- 
self with the greatest, and it may be truly said that 
half his intellectual force has been given to the criti- 
cism or elucidation of the contents of the Bible. 
It is a hopeful sign that we have among us so many 
literary guilds and societies engaged in every sort 
of study, but I think it strange that persons who 
think it worth while to make thorough preparations 
before going to hear an essay on Burns or Mary 
Somerville or Lydia Maria Child or William D. 
Howells should be willing to come to a class for the 
study of the Bible without a moment's previous 
investigation. Here is a study that yields more 
fruitage to the mind than any other. If history 



AN INTELLECTUAL STIMULUS 221 



furnishes more practical wisdom than is gained else- 
where, what a history we have in this Book giving 
the only authentic account of the origin of our race, 
tracing the development of the oldest and most in- 
fluential of peoples through more than forty cen- 
turies, touching on one side or another Babylon and 
Egypt, Persia, Greece and Rome, and merging into 
the great gulf stream of Christendom. If biography, 
or the representation of human character, has any 
charm for the human mind, where can you discover 
such strong types and such varied peculiarities as in 
Abraham and Balaam, Moses and Pharaoh, David 
and Absalom, Solomon and Isaiah, Sarah, Jezebel 
and Ruth, Elizabeth and Mary, Peter and Judas, 
Paul and John. And if poetry can lift and illumi- 
nate the soul, here we have it in Job, which Car- 
lyle calls the greatest of all human composition ; 
here we have it in the thousand-voiced Psalms of 
David, and the " wide-orbited metre" of Isaiah's 
prophesies. He must know the Bible who would 
know what the world is now most deeply pondering; 
he must know the Bible who will understand the 
history of eighteen hundred years. He must know 
the Bible who would know either the Divine 
Comedy, the Paradise Lost or the drama of 
Faust, or enter into what is greatest in musical 
and pictorial art. He must know the Bible who 
would know the spirit which is shaping our civiliza- 
tion into forms of liberty and justice and humanity. 
He must know the Bible who would comprehend 
this world-reaching evangelism of modern times that 



222 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



is sending the Word of God into the darkness of 
Africa and the twilight of Asia. But he does not 
know the Bible in its spirit and life who has not 
found in it the Babe of Bethlehem. He does not 
know the Bible in its comforting and hope-giving 
power who has not been taught by it to trust in 
Jesus as the Redeemer of his soul and the pledge of 
his immortal gladness. 

Within this volume lie 
The mystery of mysteries. 

God manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, 
seen of angels, believed of in the world, received up 
in glory, and yet the Book is so full of Christ that 
almost every page of it has led some soul by right 
lines or in curved lines to that Cross which is its 
central splendor. 

This is the armory of light, 

Yet constant use will keep it bright, 

You will find it yields 

To holy hands and humble hearts, 

More swords and shields 

Than sin has snares or hell has darts. 



DEVOTION NOT A MISTAKE. 

James Martineau, D.D. 

DE assured, all visible greatness of mind grows in 
looking at an invisible that is greater ; and since 
it is inconceivable that what is most sublime in 
humanity should spring from vision of a thing that 



DEVOTION NOT A MISTAKE 223 



is not, that what is most real and commanding with 
us should come of stretching the soul into the un- 
real and empty, that historic durability should be 
the gift of spectral fancies, we must hold these de- 
vout natures to be at one with everlasting Fact ; to 
feel truly that the august forms of Justice and Holi- 
ness are at home in Heaven — the object there 
of clearer insight and more perfect veneration. 
There are those who please themselves with the 
idea that the world will outgrow its habits of wor- 
ship ; that the newspaper will supersede the 
preacher and the prophet ; that the apprehension of 
scientific laws will replace the fervor of moral in- 
spirations ; that this sphere of being will then be per- 
fectly administered when no reference to another dis- 
tracts attention. But, for my own part, I am per- 
suaded that life would soon become intolerable on 
earth, were it copied from nothing in the heavens ; 
that its deeper affections would pine away, and its 
lights of purest thought grow pale, if it lay shrouded 
in no Holy Spirit, but only in the wilderness of 
space. The most sagacious secular voice leaves, 
after all, a chord untouched in the human heart ; 
listening too long to its didactic monotone, we begin 
to sigh for the rich music of hope and faith. The 
dry glare of noonday knowledge hurts the eye by 
plying it for use and denying it beauty ; and we 
long to be screened behind a cloud or two of mois- 
ture and of mystery, that shall mellow the glory and 
cool the air. Never can the world be less to us than 
when we make it all in all, 



224 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



WHAT MUST WE BELIEVE CONCERNING 
THE BIBLE? 

Heber Newton, D.D. 

|T has been said of the Nicene creed that it is fit 
* only to be sung. On the other hand, it would 
be hard to set the Westminster faith to music. 
The Nicene creed is the amplification of the Apos- 
tle's creed. Scarcely a doctrine which is in dispute 
in the churches round about us can furnish a proper 
ground for dispute in our roomy church. The only 
affirmation in the Nicene creed is the large, elastic 
declaration, "I believe in one Catholic and Apostolic 
church." We can thus judge of the Catholicism 
which would rule out the foremost man in the 
church for the bishopric, because of his opinion 
concerning the episcopate. 

What must we believe concerning the Bible? 
Nothing beyond the simple declaration of the Ni- 
cene creed, who spoke by the prophets. You may 
hold to the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures 
and believe every word dictated by the Almighty, 
or you may hold that large and reasonable view 
which is spreading through our church so rapidly 
with equal loyalty to our own authority, the creed. 
What does the church bid us believe concerning 
the story of the creation ? You are equally free to 
read the story in Genesis as history or parable. 
What does the church command us to believe con- 
cerning the origin of evil, the fall of man ? Nothing 
whatever. Concerning the atonement ? Nothing 



WHAT MUST WE BELIEVE 



225 



except the language of the creed, "who for us men 
and for our salvation came down from heaven." 
Concerning future punishment? Nothing not con- 
tained in the language of the creed, " He shall come 
again with glory to judge both the quick and the 
dead." All theories of the character and duration 
of the punishment are extra creedals. The first 
form of the articles contained an article on future 
punishment, and that article was afterward with- 
drawn. 

What of the resurrection ? That the dead are to 
rise into life immortal, clothed in bodily form, I un- 
derstand to be the teaching of our great creeds. 
The nature of our resurrected body is not affirmed. 
You are free to believe this in the literal sense of 
the body laid in the grave or in the larger sense 
in which most men read it. 

Concerning the sacrament and Lord's supper we 
are free to believe almost anything that commends 
itself to Christian consciousness. On all these 
themes on which the creeds are silent, it is natural 
that men should think. Opinions must be formed 
and held, and the Christian, be he layman or clergy- 
man, is left free to form his own opinion. The 
Nicene creed is a charter of liberty. It frees us 
from nine-tenths of the burning questions with which 
Protestantism is on fire to-day. 

Our great creed is the reconciliation of Christian- 
ity with itself. Christendom is torn and dismem- 
bered before our eyes. It is paralyzed with doubt. 
The strife of creeds is seen on every side. Man can 

Lamps of the Temple — 15 



226 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



not find a shelter under the reformation confessions 
of faith, with their long-drawn metaphysics. He 
who reads the signs of the times sees the alternative 
to throw overboard the creeds or to simplify them. 
To-day could our Protestant churches be content to 
part with their reformation confessions of faith and 
adopt that great Catholic creed which has come down 
through the centuries, there would be an end of 
strife and contention. 



THE ENERGIES AND AMBITIONS OF LIFE. 



HAT the greatest energy does often employ 



1 itself upon unworthy work seems evident 
enough. It seems as if it were so in Nature. 
When we listen to the tumult of force in sky and 
sea, and with a subtler ear detect the movement 
which is in the most solid substance of the earth 
itself, we cannot help picturing to ourselves what 
wonderful things those forces will accomplish when 
they are set free and turned in the direction of great- 
est effectiveness, how they will build the new heaven 
and the new earth, which shall be the theater of 
some completer and diviner life. But Nature serves 
us here as she serves us always, mostly as a sugges- 
tion and a parable. It is when we think of the 
social forces which are at work in men's intercourse 
with one another, in the conduct of the world's af- 
fairs, that we are most overwhelmingly impressed 
with the abundance of force which is waiting and 



Bishop Phillips Brooks. 




ENERGIES AND AMBITIONS OF LIFE 227 



with the work which that force might do if it were 
turned with precision upon the highest ends of life. 
There are the elemental affections which might warm 
the dead to life and scatter the misery from count- 
less homes of darkness. There is scheming and 
planning enough in the society of a great city in a 
single winter, if it were nobly instead of basely di- 
rected, to bear all life with its countless relations up 
into a higher level, and almost build a New Jerusa- 
lem along the streets. There is artful .contriving 
and tireless vigilance and excited feeling enough in 
politics, if it were filled with public spirit and exor- 
cised of selfishness, to grapple with every public 
question and save the country a thousand times. 
There is the faculty of combination and co- operation 
with its great undeveloped possibilities. There is 
bustling activity enough in college to make the col- 
lege in a week almost all which those who love it 
best wish that it might be. 

Yes, there is no lack of force. Never did men feel 
the abundance of unused and misused force as it is 
felt to-day. Nowhere is the student of the future 
met by the awful problem of a dead world, an un- 
born clod or a burnt-out cinder to be kindled into 
life. The life is here. Only so often it plays in- 
stead of working, and loiters instead of running, and 
is eager not about the greatest, but about the least. 
Where is the noisy energy and great zeal to-day ? 
It is where men a.re seeking money, not where men 
are seeking truth. It is where men are pursuing 
selfish ambitions, not where they are laboring for 



228 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



the common good. It is where the things of the 
flesh, not the things of the spirit, are the prize. So 
it appears at least upon the surface. So runs the 
lamentation of anxious hearts. 

Turn from the wide world, which it is so easy to 
abuse, so hard to understand, and think of your 
own life which you do know. There are high desires, 
noble discontents and ambitions in you. You know 
that they are there. But is not the dissatisfaction 
of your whole life this, that it is not they that get 
your most devoted thought and eager action ? It 
is " the meat which perishes " for which you really 
labor. It is the prize of the moment that sets you 
all astir with desire, with indignation, with hope, 
with fear. All the time off there in the distance on 
its shrine shines pure and white and real the ultimate 
desire of your nature, adored and treasured, but too 
far away and cold to draw to it the tides of passion, 
love and hate, which spend their force upon the 
trifles of the day. Sometimes it seems almost as 
if so strange a state of things produced its strange 
result in the discrediting of eager passion and desire, 
as if they were too coarse and common for the 
higher interests of life. The instrument which you 
confine to lower uses and rob of its best duties is 
itself dishonored, and becomes even suspicious of 
itself. Eagerness and enthusiasm seem to many of 
us poetically to have their true place in the stock 
exchange or on the ball field, but to bring some- 
thing of defilement and distortion with them, when 
you set them free into the lofty regions of the search 



ENERGIES AND AMBITIONS OF LIFE 229 

for truth and the development of character and the 
service of fellow man. To be excited in the higher 
activities is labelled with the dark name of fanati- 
cism. It is in these cool groves of the sublime hopes 
that men expect to meet the haunting or haunted 
presence of the crank. A hundred years ago it was 
provided that an annual sermon should be preached 
in Boston, one of the appointed themes of which 
was " Against Enthusiasm." The kingdom of 
heaven " suffering violence " and the " violent tak- 
ing it by storm " seem sacrilege and outrage to 
many of the most religious and devout souls. 

But all such misgivings do not take strong hold 
or go very deep. Nature protests against them. 
It is impossible to repress the upward movement of 
the higher powers. Fire demands the finest fuel, 
that it may burn with its clearest flame ; and there- 
fore the dream is always present to the heart of man, 
and will not be dispelled, that the best energy of 
man, his skill and power of effective combination 
and earnest enthusiasm, must ultimately find their 
full development and highest occupation in the re- 
gion of man's noblest influence. It cannot be that 
these giants will always be contented to toil at the 
mill with slaves. One of the most striking and au- 
dacious features in the latest presentation of a pros- 
pect of social regeneration lies in this — that it dares 
to believe in the power of the higher vitality of man 
to play through the whole range of his activity and 
to move the whole machinery of his living. Look- 
ing backward from the far-off heights which it has 



230 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



attained, it sees all the machinery of living, all social 
activity and movement, vigorously maintained by 
the presence in the higher ambitions, in the am- 
bition for culture and friendship, and the good of 
all, of that same energy which now seems to con- 
fine itself so largely to selfishness and covetousness. 
It is a noble dream. It is not necessary, it is not 
possible, for us to think that we or any men have 
seen the way to fulfilment of that dream ; but that 
the dream is splendid no man must deny — the 
dream of a time when into the higher as now into 
the lower activities of men shall be freely poured 
the passionate enthusiasm of a thoroughly awakened 
human life. 

The world has seen attempts, approaches to the 
fulfillment of that dream. It has seen single spirits, 
noble men or noble groups of men, as earnestly 
active in the pursuit of knowledge or the pursuit of 
character or the service of their fellow-men as any 
of their brethren havebeen in the pursuit of the 
most selfish interest. But such attempts have 
always had this weakness — that they have lost the 
unity of human life and seemed to condemn and to 
despise the activity of man in lower fields. The 
beauty of Saint Paul's great spirit is that he feels 
one life-blood beating through humanity from top 
to bottom. He accepts the earthly race-course 
while he asserts the glory of the celestial struggle. 
He would have man, body and soul and spirit, sanc- 
tified wholly. His sense of man through all his 
nature fed and inspired by God is like the sense of 



THE SLAVE TRADE 



231 



nature which, without condescension on the one 
side, and without unnatural strain upon the other, 
shapes and colors the grass-blade in the valley and 
builds the stately forest with its profuse world of 
shade upon the hills. 



THE SLAVE TRADE IN EQUATORIAL 
AFRICA DENOUNCED. 

Cardinal Lavigerie. 

CROM every part of this huge continent, from the 
* boundaries of the provinces France has an- 
nexed in the north, to the English possessions at 
the Cape, one long wail of anguish has gone up for 
centuries; a cry wherein all the worst and keenest 
suffering our humanity is capable of feeling, meets and 
mingles ; the cry of mothers from whose arms the 
ruthless marauder snatches their little ones, to deliv- 
er them into life-long servitude, and who, like Rachel, 
weep for their children and refuse to be comforted ; 
the cry of peaceful, happy villagers, surprised by 
night in their sleep, who behold their dwellings re- 
duced to ashes, all who resist put to death, and the re- 
mainder dragged away and driven to the market 
where human beings are sold like cattle ; the cry of 
interminable troops of miserable captives, men, 
women and children, sinking from hunger, thirst, 
and despair ; slowly expiring in the desert, where 
they are left behind, already more dead than alive, 
for the sake of economizing the scanty nourishment 
doled out to them, or struck down by a cruel blow 



232 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



as an example to strike terror into others as 
wretched as themselves ; the cry of thousands of 
defenseless human beings, abandoned as a prey to 
the passions of their pitiless captors ; all this, and 
much more, carried on daily through greed of gain, 
desire of revenge, or lust of conquest. Such is the 
fate that overtakes, year by year, more than a mill- 
ion of our fellow-creatures; and those who have 
witnessed the horrors of this iniquitous traffic as- 
sure me that one might heap words together with- 
out finding terms to adequately describe what 
African slavery really is. 

I have myself seen some of the unhappy victims 
of this impious trade. I have heard from their own 
lips the recital of their wrongs. I have heard chil- 
dren narrate, with a simplicity which gave uncon- 
scious force to their words, the story of their father's 
murder, their mother's death, the torture of the 
weary tramp over sun-scorched plains. I have seen 
some, long afterwards, beholding again in their 
dreams these revolting scenes, start from their sleep 
uttering fearful shrieks. Such is African slavery 
as it exists at the present moment, as it exists 
in our immediate vicinity, so near to us that 
those who will may see and hear it for themselves. 
The seaports are now closed against it ; it has spread 
far into the interior, and in an aggravated form. 

It is very well, my bethren, to discuss theoret- 
ically the amount of injustice involved in buying and 
selling black men ; but look at the slave trade in 
practice, see the brutal cruelty it fosters in the 



KINGLY POWER OF CHRIST 



233 



masters, the depth of degradation and suffering to 
which it reduces the slaves, and you will agree with 
me that one cry alone can ascend from human lips 
at the sight — a cry of horror and reprobation. 

Can you wonder, then, that I, a bishop, to whom 
the Holy See has entrusted the task of evangelizing 
a portion of the wide tracts of country where slavery 
holds undisputed sway, should, standing in the 
house of God, lift up my voice in denunciation of 
this accursed trade, and in the name of humanity, in 
the name of faith, vow to wage against it a relentless 
and unceasing warfare? 



THER kings may reign with an authority which 



crushes the opposition of common men ; yet the 
strongest of them fails to accomplish his entire pur- 
pose or to maintain one undeviating course of ac- 
tion to the end. They must all change their plans 
to meet changing conditions ; and many of them are 
overthrown at last by some despised fault or unfore- 
seen emergency. Alexander conquers the world, 
and dies in a debauch. Antony throws away the 
world, to keep the temporary, calculating favor of a 
sorceress. Caesar masters Europe, to fall, logically, 
by the daggers of his intimates. Charles V, after 
manipulating nations, abdicates in disgust and 
spends his restless leisure in a vain effort to make 
clocks keep time together. Marlborough forfeits 



THE KINGLY POWER OF CHRIST. 



Simon J. McPherson, D.D. 




234 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



the good will of his indebted countrymen by vanity 
and penuriousness. Napoleon changes the map of a 
continent, and dies in chains and solitude. Death 
at last ends the dominion of them all alike ; though 
they have brought mankind to their feet, they must 
yield themselves to the grim skeleton. 

But look at Jesus Christ ! Did any least or most 
secret fault ever touch His holy soul or fleck His 
spotless life ? He trampled sin to death without 
once looking down. Yet He ever manifested His 
authority by sweet reasonableness of manner, strong 
simplicity in teaching, awful reserves of power in 
action. Immaculate, invincible, merciful, He alone 
among men maintained one unalterable purpose 
without swerving. He was born, He lived, He died, 
He rose again, all for the same, unchanging end. 
The temptations of Satan, on the mountain, in the 
garden, fell upon Him harmlessly, like rain-drops upon 
Ehrenbreitstein. The amiable dullness of His dis- 
ciples, the groundless malice of the chief priests, the 
suicidal treason of Judas, the sensational taunting of 
Herod, the cowardly cunning of Pilate, the ribald 
mockery of the multitude, aye, the burden and mys- 
tery of the whole world's sin, were all together 
powerless to disturb for an instant the enduring san- 
ity and serenity of His loving purpose. The contra- 
dictions of sinners, the machinations of vested power, 
the contempt of mankind, the dire solitude of Cal- 
vary, His shameful murder by the very beneficiaries 
of His loving-kindness ; nay, all the elements of the 
sorest tragedy, the sublimest martyrdom, the most 



KINGLY POWER OF CHRIST 



235 



heroic self-immolation in the blood-stained annals of 
earth's history, were met and mastered by His calm, 
inviolable will as drift-wood is tossed ashore by the 
silent swell of the sea. The royal purpose of this 
Prince Imperial of the universe ! Circumstances 
could not thwart it, bad men could not override it, 
Satan could not undermine it, death itself could not 
defeat it. Rather did these all become parts of it, and 
serve at length as the real means of making it fruitful. 

How, then, can men, who only know themselves, 
stumble at miracles performed by such a one as 
Christ ? The real wonder is not that He wrought so 
many, but that He confined His touch to so few. To 
His transcendent character miracles seem but nat- 
ural. The signs which He did disclose, in a sinful 
world, which He might well have torn to pieces with 
indignant finger-tips, are but infinitesimal outcrop- 
pings of the stupendous sphere of His omnipotence, 
which ranges beyond our near horizon in endless 
strata and systems. Did He, indeed, feed five thou- 
sand with a few loaves ? He is Himself the unwast- 
ing Bread of Life, of which uncounted myriads shall 
eat and never die ! Did He raise Lazarus, and then 
rise Himself? The time will come when all that are 
in their graves will hear His voice, and they that 
hear shall live. Did He calm the fretful little sea of 
Galilee ? At last, with one benediction of His pierced 
hand, He will smooth the heaving oceans of our 
human life into the eternal sea of glass. Let a man 
but know Jesus Christ, and the heart within must 
instinctively attest Him. 



236 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



WHAT SHALL WE BE? 



Johx Foster. 



HERE is one question which combines with the 



interest of speculation and curiosity an interest 
incomparably greater, nearer, more affecting, more 
solemn than any other. It is the simple question — 
" What shall we be ? " How soon it is spoken ! but 
who shall reply? Think how profoundly this ques- 
tion, this mystery, concerns us — and, in comparison 
with this, what are to us all questions of all sciences? 
What to us all researches into the constitution and 
laws of material nature ? What all investigations 
into the history of past ages ? What to us the future 
career of events in the progress of states and em- 
pires ? What to us — what shall become of this 
globe itself, or all the mundane system ? What we 
shall be, we ourselves, is the matter of surpassing 
interest. 



Q LIRE enough — why should not every sane person 
^ be a Christian ? You admit the infinite beauty 
of Christ's character and earthly career of loving 
kindness ; you admit that He is just such a Friend 
as you need ; you admit that there is no other Sa- 
viour who can save your soul ; and you admit that the 
closer you should live up to His commandments, the 
more beautiful, useful, and noble your life would be. 




WHY NOT A CHRISTIAN? 



Theodore L. Cuyler. 



WHY NOT A CHRISTIAN 



237 



At some time or other you probably intend to be- 
come a Christian. There is perhaps a promise made 
to your common-sense and your conscience which 
you have not yet fulfilled. My friend, you are los- 
ing time. As promises are not current at the gate 
of heaven, you may lose your soul ! Why have you 
not given your heart and life to Jesus Christ long 
ago? 

There have been obstacles in your way. Of course 
there have ; no road to success ever runs down-hill. 
The path to heaven is up-hill, and a godly character 
costs something. Jesus Christ opened up that path- 
way for you at the infinite cost of Gethsemane's an- 
guish, and a bitter death on Calvary. He offers you no 
"free pass" over that road to eternal life; at the 
start you must repent of your sins, you must break 
with your old self, and with sinful habits ; you must 
take up your cross and follow where Christ leads, 
cost what it may. The best things are the costliest ; 
and of all cheap things a cheap religion is the most 
worthless. Grace on God's side is free; but a godly 
character in this world, and heaven in the next world, 
costs repentance, faith, self-denial, some battles with 
temptation and some tough climbs up steep hills. 
Heaven is not reached by an elevator. 

Among the obstacles that have held you back, 
perhaps one was a foolish fear of ridicule. Somebody 
might stare at you or laugh at you. The best people 
would not do this, you acknowledge. Then why 
should you allow the short-lived scoffs or stares or 
sneers of sinners to laugh you out of vour soul? The 



2 3 8 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



surest way to live down a laugh is to live up to 
Christ's commandments. A Christian character is 
always respected by everybody whose respect is 
worth having. Kick that silly obstacle out of your 
way, as Naaman kicked his false pride out of his 
way when he submitted to go and wash in the 
Jordan, and came back healed and happy. 

The fear of man may not be your hindrance ; you 
may have become disgusted with some specimens of 
professed Christianity that you have come in contact 
with, and have said to yourself, " I do not care to be 
what they are." So far, you are right. Jesus Christ 
does not ask you to be what certain weak, or cow- 
ardly, or mean, or unworthy professors are. He asks 
you to trust Him, and to copy Him, and to follow 
Him — not to fix your eyes on the morbid anatomy 
of some poor, diseased fellow-creature. Every truly 
good thing is counterfeited ; but nobody ever issues 
a counterfeit on a broken bank. Don't be studying 
the faults of people — whatever their profession — who 
are admitted failures. Study your own faults and 
your own sins ; and bear in mind that unless you are 
"born again," and made over by converting grace, 
you will share the same eternal condemnation as 
these people whom you so dislike and despise. 
Fling that foolish excuse out of your way. 

Perhaps no such obstacle as dread of ridicule or 
disgust with inconsistent church members may 
hinder you from accepting Christ. You may ac- 
knowledge that you ought to be a Christian, but 
you say, " My heart is obstinate, and I cannot 



WHY NOT A CHRISTIAN 



239 



change it." Then do not attempt what is impossi- 
ble. Simply do what is possible, and what the Lord 
Jesus commands you. He invites you to turn from 
your sins and obey Him; and He offers you, and 
promises you the almighty help of His Spirit to 
change your heart. Bartimeus could not open his 
own eyes. When he came to Jesus, and trusted 
Jesus, and prayed to Jesus, the work of opening 
those blind eyes was wrought by the Omnipotent 
Jesus at once. The first step in Bible religion is 
obedience to Christ. He can change your heart 
as easily as He opened the blind beggar's eyes. 
Your fatal mistake has been that you tried to do 
what Divine power only can effect, and have neg- 
lected to do what the loving Saviour asked you to 
do. If you sincerely desire to be a Christian, you 
must have Christ in your heart. If you sincerely 
want Him, you can have Him. He will rejoice to 
come to you and make His abode in your soul. All 
the devils in the pit and all the sceptics on the 
globe cannot keep Him from saving you. Nobody 
can, except yourself. And that, my friend, is just 
what you have been doing ! You have been locking 
Christ out of your heart. When you admit Him 
— yes, when you begin to do even the humblest act 
for no other reason than to please and obey Christ 
— you begin to become a Christian. 

The first taste of Christ will make you want to 
have more of Him. His service will give you 'the 
sweetest satisfaction a heart can desire. Who ever 
regretted that he or she was a true Christian? 



240 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



What man or woman at the end of life ever 
mourned that they had followed Jesus — through 
storm or shine, through good report or evil report — 
on to their dying hour? A few days ago all Roch- 
ester stood in uncovered reverence around the silent 
form of one aged man ! Rich and poor, lofty and 
lowly. Protestant and Roman Catholic, the godly 
and the ungodly, all were ready to pay to the vene- 
rated and beloved James B. Shaw the honest tribute 
— this man was a true Christian, this man follozved 
Christ. You may not attain such a measure of use- 
fulness and renown as my beloved old friend 
reached, but the best that you ever can attain will 
be summed up in one word, Christ's Christian. 



WANTED, A HERO! 

Simon J. McPherson, D.D. 

T T EROISM is a creed and a culture that can never 
* * become absolute. I know that our age, like al- 
most every other, is shadowed by those who discredit 
this doctrine. Selfish men malign it, unless they are 
themselves the heroes worshiped. Blase men scout it, 
either because they think enthusiasm vulgar, or be- 
cause the fires of earth have burned up their capacity 
for it. Debauched men defame it, because by com- 
mitting suicide upon self-respect they have murdered 
their generous admiration for others. Materialists de- 
base it, because they blind themselves to spirituality 
by microscopic absorption in matter, if not in dirt. 
Some metaphysicians disdain it, because they 



WANTED, A HERO 



24I 



asphyxiate life with their azotic abstractions. But 
to all healthy minds, the nil admirari principle is at 
once impossible and contemptible. Being in heart 
but children of a larger growth, free alike from 
Pharisaic pride and Sadducean cynicism, all true 
men are forced by their instinctive aspirations both 
to admire some one that is nobler than themselves, 
and to struggle ontoward the same lofty level of 
nobility. 

I know but too well how commonplace toil and 
care and pain and lure and sin can chill the ardor of 
this holy ambition. Yet we are proved to be made 
for great things by the fact that if we stifle this 
capability for wondering and aspiring, even if we 
fail to keep it eager and sweet, the aurora of hope 
fades into the light of garish day, and our spirits 
sink into restlessness and self-loathing. We are 
bound by self-respect to nourish this ample faculty 
with food which will neither starve the deepest 
yearnings, nor cloy upon the finest tastes ; and, most 
of all, we need the encouragement of seeing a tran- 
scendent hero in common life. If just one repre- 
sentative and friendly man has attained true heroism 
under the ordinary conditions of human experience, 
we shall not despair of ourselves ; and, if he freely 
proffers us his method and his help, we shall glow 
with assured expectation. 

Instinct, then, demands precisely what the New 
Testament supplies, a veritable hero, for whom an 
apology shall never be needed, whose character com- 
pels the wonder of worship, whose magnetism of 

Lamps of the Temple — 16 



242 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



nature infallibly attracts appreciative discipleship, 
and whose gracious gifts of love insure to us a share 
in his own heroism. 

There is only one such hero in history, the man 
Christ Jesus, Prince over all the Kings of the Earth. 
In vain do I look among the lower majesties for an- 
other peerless model. I find, indeed, a few that 
touch my heart with awe by rising above the mass 
with certain pre-eminent qualities ; but never yet 
have I followed one of these careers to the end, un- 
less I encountered some disheartening weakness or 
fault. But the longer I contemplate the character 
and work of Jesus Christ, the more imperative does 
it become for me to say with the skeptical Carlyle : 
" Hero-worship, heart-felt, prostrate admiration, 
submission burning, boundless, for a noblest god- 
like form of man — is not this the heart of Christian- 
ity ? . . . Let sacred silence meditate that 
sacred matter ; you will find it the ultimate perfec- 
tion of a principle extant throughout man's whole 
history on earth." 



HOSE who die in the fear of God and in the faith 



1 of Christ do not really taste death ; to them there 
is no death, but only a change of place, a change of 
state ; they pass at once into some new life, with 
all their powers, all their feelings unchanged ; still 
the same living, thinking, active beings which they 



DEATH A NEW BIRTH. 



Charles Kingsley. 




DEATH A NEW BIRTH 



243 



were here on earth. . . . Rest they may — rest 
they will, if they need rest. But what is their rest? 
Not idleness, but peace of mind. To rest from sin, 
from sorrow, from fear, from doubt, from care ; this 
is true rest. Above all, to rest from the worst 
weariness of all — knowing one's duty, and not being 
able to do it. That is true rest — the rest of God, 
who works forever and is at rest forever ; as the 
stars over our heads move forever, thousands of 
miles a day, and yet are at perfect rest, because they 
move orderly, harmoniously fulfilling the law which 
God has given them. Perfect rest in perfect work ; 
that surely is the rest of blessed spirits till the final 
consummation of all things, when Christ shall have 
made up the number of His elect. And if it be so, 
what comfort for us who must die, what comfort for 
us who have seen others die, if death be but a 
new birth into some higher life; if all that it 
changes in us is our body — the mere husk and 
shell of us — such a change as comes over the 
snake when he casts his old skin and comes out 
fresh and gay, or even the crawling caterpillar, 
which breaks its prison and spreads its wings to the 
sun as a fair butterfly? Where is the sting of 
death, then, if death can sting, and poison, and cor- 
rupt nothing of us for which our friends love us ; 
nothing of us with which we could do service to 
men or God ? Where is the victory of the grave, 
if, so far from the grave holding us down, it frees us 
from the very thing which does hold us down — the 
mortal body? 



244 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



POSSESSION AND RESPONSIBILITY. 



OSSESSION is the measure of responsibility, 



and that there is never possession without re- 
sponsibility. We shall be judged, according to the 
Bible, by what we have, not by what we have not. 
This is true of genius and of the various opportuni- 
ties of life. When Dives is reminded that he had 
had his " good things," it would be absurd to pun- 
ish him for that, unless pecuniary success and ac- 
cumulation are blameworthy. Sending on him 
" evil things " must have been the consequence of 
his abusing or failing wisely to employ his " good 
things." Possession should have created in his 
heart a sense of responsibility, and he should have 
used his advantages for the well-being of humanity 
and the glory of God. This he had failed to do, 
and hence his pathetic admonition. Let me give 
an instance from history of the opposite, of one 
who realized responsibility when he came into 
possession. Henry II ascended the throne of 
England 1 1 54 A. D. He became attached to 
Thomas Becket and promoted him to positions of 
trust and honor. It is more than intimated that 
this man, who had only taken deacons' orders, was 
as irregular in his life as the King himself. After 
some years the support of mercenary troops taxed 
the royal treasury excessively, and Henry desired 
to lay his hands on the coffers of the Church. That 
he might have a tool ready to do his work he 



George C. Lorimer, LL.D. 




POSSESSION AND RESPONSIBILITY 



245 



appointed Becket Archbishop of Canterbury and 
Primate of England. Thomas did not desire the 
dangerous post, but when compelled to accept he 
became a very hero of truth and honor. He for- 
bade the King to touch the treasures of the Church. 
They belonged to the poor — the poor should not 
be robbed even to gratify his sovereign and friend. 
So determined was he that he endured exile, loss of 
home and comfort, and returning was foully assassi- 
nated when officiating at the altar. No wonder he 
was canonized. Rich men are God's archbishops. 
When they shall realize this, and as faithfully hold 
their golden See and all the influence it gives, as 
Becket, then will they also be worthy of homage 
and then shall they receive it. May I not also add 
that as this wonderful devotion to duty came with 
Becket's exaltation, so the thing needed to bring 
our millionaires to the level of their high oppor- 
tunity is a high sense of their relation to God. 
" Repent " is the word used in the parable — a word 
that has in it the full significance of personal relig- 
ion. To repent is to turn round — to turn from the 
low to the high, from the mean to the generous, 
from earth to heaven, from self to humanity. This 
is the divine change, and where this takes place the 
message of Dives has not been in vain. The soul 
by nature is very much like the crusaders at Anti- 
och. These soldiers of the cross were hemmed in 
by the Moslem hosts, and they could not leave the 
city and gain the road to Jerusalem. Tradition 
tells us that one of the common men found the 



246" 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



lance that had pierced the Saviour's side. Once the 
army realized the presence of this sacred relic it was 
prepared for any hazardous movement. The lead- 
ers commanded an advance, and with the lance at 
their head they dispersed the foe and opened a path 
to the holy city. Material interests and material 
temptations surround and assail the soul of the 
affluent. Something divine is needed to stimulate 
them to noble efforts for freedom. Not the lance 
which pierced Christ's breast, but the consciousness 
that that heart was pierced for them is what is 
specially demanded. When this is apprehended 
and felt, when it is understood that Christ gave 
Himself for them, then will they no longer consent 
to be in bondage held to the gross charms of wealth, 
but a way will be found through it to the life of 
usefulness, and to the city that hath foundations 
whose builder and maker is God. 



E are struck with this peculiarity in the author 



Y v of Christianity, that whilst all other men are 
formed in a measure by the spirit of the age, we can 
discover in Jesus no impression of the period in 
which He lived. We know with considerable accu- 
racy the state of society, the modes of thinking, the 
hopes and expectations of the country in which 
Jesus was born and grew up ; and He is as free from 
them, and as exalted above them, as if He had lived 



THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 



W. E. Channing. 




CHARACTER OF CHRIST 



247 



in another world, or, with every sense shut on the 
objects around Him. His character has in it nothing 
local or temporary. It can be explained by nothing 
around Him. His history shows Him to us a soli- 
tary being, living for purposes which none but 
Himself comprehended, and enjoying not so 
much as the sympathy of a single mind. His apos- 
tles, His chosen companions, brought to Him the 
spirit of the age, and nothing shows its strength 
more strikingly than the slowness with which it 
yielded in these honest men to the instructions of 
Jesus. 

Jesus came to a nation expecting a Messiah; and 
He claimed this character. But instead of conform- 
ing to the opinions which prevailed in regard to the 
Messiah, He resisted them wholly and without re- 
serve. To a people anticipating a triumphant 
leader, under whom vengeance as well as ambition 
was to be glutted by the prostration of their oppres- 
sors, He came as a spiritual leader teaching humility 
and peace. This undisguised hostility to the dear- 
est hopes and prejudices of His nation ; this disdain 
of the usual compliances by which ambition and im- 
posture conciliate adherents ; this deliberate expo- 
sure of Himself to rejection and hatred, cannot 
easily be explained by the common principles of 
human nature, and excludes the possibility of selfish 
aims in the author of Christianity. 

One striking peculiarity in Jesus is the extent — 
the vastness of His views. Whilst all around Him 
looked for a Messiah to liberate God's ancient 



248 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



people; whilst to every other Jew, Judea was the 
exclusive object of pride and hope — Jesus came de- 
claring Himself to be the deliverer and light of the 
world ; and in His whole teaching and life you see 
a consciousness, which never forsakes Him, of a re- 
lation to the whole human race. This idea of 
blessing mankind, of spreading a universal religion, 
was the most magnificent which had ever entered 
into man's mind. All previous religions had been 
given to particular nations. No conqueror, legis- 
lator, philosopher, in the extravagance of ambition, 
had ever dreamed of subjecting all nations to a 
common faith. 

This conception of a universal religion, intended 
for Jew and Gentile, for all nations and climes, is 
wholly inexplicable by the circumstances of Jesus. 
He was a Jew ; and the first and deepest and most 
constant impression on a Jew's mind, was that of 
the superiority conferred on His people and Himself 
by the national religion, introduced by Moses. The 
wall between the Jew and the Gentile seemed to 
reach to heaven. The abolition of the peculiarity of 
Moses, the overthrow of the temple of Mount Si- 
nai, the erection of a new religion, in which all men 
would meet as brethren, and which would be the 
common and equal property of Jew and Gentile — 
these were of all ideas the last to spring up in Judea, 
the last for enthusiasm or imposture to originate. 

Compare next these views of Christ with His sta- 
tion in life. He was of humble birth and education, 
with nothing in His lot, with no extensive means, 



HOLY LIVING 



249 



no rank, or wealth, or patronage to infuse vast 
thoughts and extravagant plans. The shop of a car- 
penter, the village of Nazareth, were not spots for 
ripening a scheme more aspiring and extensive than 
had ever been formed. It is a principle in human 
nature, that except in cases of insanity, some pro- 
portion is observed between the power of an individ- 
ual and his plans and hopes. The purpose to which 
Jesus devoted Himself was as ill-suited to his condi- 
tion as an attempt to change the seasons, or to 
make the sun rise in the west. That a young man 
in obscure life, belonging to an oppressed nation, 
should seriously think of subverting the time-hal- 
lowed and deep-rooted religions of the world is a 
strange fact ; but with this purpose we see the mind 
of Jesus thoroughly imbued ; and sublime as it is, He 
never falls below it in His language or conduct, but 
speaks and acts with a consciousness of superiority, 
with a dignity and authority, becoming this unpar- 
alleled destination. In this connection I cannot but 
add another striking circumstance in Jesus ; and that 
is the calm confidence with which He always looked 
forward to the accomplishment of His design. 



HOLY LIVING. 

C. H. Spurgeon. 

\17"HAT strength holy living in his people gives to 
the preacher of the Word of God! A man 
comes before you and says, " There is f somewhere 
about here, an invisible lake, containing the purest, 



250 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



coolest, and most refreshing water that ever you 
drank. You never saw water so pure and delicious." 
We ask the gentleman to let us see this lake. No, 
he cannot show the lake, but he will allow us to 
examine the streams which flow out of it. That is a 
fair test, and we agree to abide by it. Here is one 
of the outflows. We fill a glass from it, and hold it 
up to the light. Why, here are little whales and 
elephants swimming in it, and no end of tiny sea- 
monsters disporting themselves ; that lake is hardly 
the place to drink from, unless one would have meat 
as well as drink at every draught. Our informant 
assures us that there must be a mistake somewhere. 
So we hope. This stream has evidently gone wrong; 
he will take us to another outflow. Again we dip 
our cup, and lo ! it is filled with water of a strange 
color, as if the filth of some great city had run into 
it. We loathe to drink. Again we are told that 
there is some failure here also ; and we are begged 
to try again. After three or four such experiments 
we feel quite unable to believe in this crystal lake. 
Such streams as these have not come out of an ex- 
panse of purity; we will keep to our old-fashioned 
waterworks till we have more reliable informatfon. 
See the parallel. If Paul had begun praising the 
Gospel, and the people had said, " Show it to us by 
its effects," he might have said, " Let us pay a visit 
to Lydia, the seller of purple." They find out her 
store, and look at her wares. Somehow her purple 
does not seem to be dyed after the ancient Tyrian 
fashion. The color is not true or fast. If she tries 



THE CARCASE — THE VULTURE 25 I 

to pass off a base imitation as the original article, 
we reckon the woman an old cheat, and by no means 
a good evidence of the power of the Gospel. If she 
uses a trade-mark which does not belong to her, we 
ccnclude that her religion is worthless. Let us call 
upon the gaoler, who is another instance of the work 
of grace in Philippi. When we come to the gaol the 
porter tells us that the gaoler is beating the prison- 
ers ; and on inquiry we find that the prison is a little 
hell, and those in it are wretched in the extreme un- 
der his tyrannical hand. " He is worse," says the 
porter, " since Paul came here. He talks a great deal 
about religion, but we do not see much of it, unless 
it lies in being harsh, suspicious, cruel and selfish/' 
If these things happened Paul would feel sorry that 
he had brought us to Philippi, and he would be 
unable to preach the Word with boldness. 



THE CARCASE— THE VULTURE. 

Bishop Cheney. 

IN a day or two we shall celebrate the one hundred 
and twelfth birthday of the American people. 
It suggests solemn thought for every citizen. We 
shall see the political mercury reach the highest 
point in the excitements of the coming campaign. 
With that, as a Christian minister, I am not con- 
cerned, except to exercise fearlessly my right, and 
to do faithfully my duty, as a patriot and a citizen. 
But in the calm hush of this Sabbath, on this eve of 
our national birthday, I may most appropriately ask 



252 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



whether there are not signs of that deadness of spirit, 
that corruption of the body politic, which, unchecked, 
means the gathering together of the eagles. 

The attitude of the rich and poor, of the laborer 
and the capitalist toward each other, is more bit- 
terly antagonistic than ever before in the history of 
the United States. In that fierce antagonism, one 
side resorts to the cruel tyranny of the strike and 
the boycott ; the other to the equally cruel tyranny 
of vast combinations of capital crushing out the 
smaller trader. Shall our sympathies be enlisted on 
the side of poor men who prevent other poor 
men from earning their daily bread ? Or shall they 
be given to bloated " trusts " and unscrupulous cor- 
porations ? That is not the question. For both 
alike trample all justice and humanity beneath their 
feet. What we want is a public sentiment which 
shall demand in tones that both sides shall hear, that 
neither combinations of labor nor combinations of 
capital shall trample on the sacredness of law and 
the rights of the individual man. If such a public 
sentiment cannot be created, nothing is more certain 
than that the soul of all free government will die. 
We shall have only the dead body of a nation. And 
" where the body is, there will the eagles be gathered 
together." 

Look in another direction. The more thoroughly 
you educate a vicious man, the more do you multi- 
ply his power for evil. It is no particular relief to 
my mind when in a dark night and on a lonely road, 
I meet a highwayman, that I have the assurance 



THE CARCASE — THE VULTURE 



253 



that the weapon he carries is of the latest pattern, 
and possesses every improvement ingenuity can 
furnish. It gives no comfort to the thoughtful and 
patriotic American to be told that the standard of 
intellectual training in our schools and colleges is 
becoming more and more thorough — while he knows 
that the best methods to cultivate the moral side of 
the nature of the young are being steadily elimi- 
nated from our popular education. Give me a 
young man who has never been taught to believe 
in the existence of a just and holy God- — never has 
been led to discover a revelation of that God's will 
in the Bible, and never has been pointed to a future 
life, but left to regard death as the end of all — and 
I will show you a young man who, just in propor- 
tion to the keenness to which the edge of his intel- 
lect has been sharpened by education, is going to be 
a standing menace to society. 

Well, we have thrust out the Bible from our 
schools. We have hushed the voice of prayer in 
the place where we cultivate the minds of the young, 
Even our colleges are beginning no longer to require 
attendance on their chapel worship. We are practi- 
cally saying — " Sharpen the wits. Let conscience 
take care of itself." 

George Washington was not ashamed to say in 
his last message to Congress, " I repeat my fervent 
supplications to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, 
that His Providential care may be still extended to 
the United States, that the virtue and happiness of 
the people may be preserved." The father of his 



254 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



country knew no way in which " the virtue and happi- 
ness " of this people could "be preserved," except 
by supplication to the God of all grace. Does our 
public education of the rising generation rest on the 
foundation which Washington laid down ? A con- 
scienceless, godless nation is a body in which the 
soul has withered. Like all such bodies it grows 
corrupt. It is ripe for judgment. " Where the 
body is, thither shall the eagles be gathered 
together." 

Once more. Three or four weeks ago I looked 
across the river at Kankakee upon a vast and mag- 
nificent pile of buildings. It was provided by State 
taxation. Almost all of the wretched inmates be- 
hind its iron bars and within its massive walls are 
supported by taxation of the people. There are 
hundreds of such institutions the country over, bur- 
dening the industry of the land. Yet the most care- 
ful statistics show that four-fifths of all these de- 
mented beings were made such by intemperance. 
Certainly the same ratio will hold good with regard 
to the criminal institutions which lay the burden 
of taxation on the honest, sober and industrious 
portion of our people. 

The simple fact that $760,000,000 is spent every 
year in the United States upon intoxicating liquors 
is but a small item as compared with what the 
effects of this fact work out in the taxation of the 
people. 

Our ministers of religion of all churches together 
cost for their support annually $12,000,000. We 



THE CARCASE — THE VULTURE 



255 



pay directly and indirectly for the support of intem- 
perance and its results $1,400,000,000 a year. Such 
figures may be startling, but they are too big to be 
comprehended. Let me put before you another 
fact. If all the saloons in this country were placed 
in a line, each with a frontage of twenty feet, they 
would stretch in unbroken continuity from Chicago 
to New York. What their corrupting influence 
is upon the morals, the political purity and the 
social life of our great cities, every one of us 
knows. 

You ask me what I would do about it. Will I 
rely on moral suasion, or temperance organizations? 
Will I advocate prohibition ? Will I vote for high 
license? I answer that I am not here to dictate 
methods, nor to prescribe political action. But I am 
here to stir public conscience, to quicken public sen- 
timent, to rouse the moral sense of Christian men and 
women by pointing out to them the most fearful 
evil with which religion as well as morality has to 
contend. If we stand still with our hands hanging 
in helplessness, we shall see a nation with its moral 
life eaten out like a fruit within whose rind is rot- 
tenness. Such a nation is but a corpse. And where 
the body is, there will the eagles be gathered 
together. 

As we approach the birthday of our nation, I 
have hope in one direction only. It is the power of 
the religion of Christ embodied in a spiritual and 
consecrated church. 

Lazarus had lain in the grave three days. Cor- 



256 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



ruption had begun. But that did not baffle Christ. 
Let us bring Christ to the nation's resurrection, and 
like Abraham beside his altar of sacrifice, when the 
birds of judgment come down, we may yet drive 
them away. 



THE RECOIL FROM UNBELIEF. 



\17E believe that a recoil from unbelief is now 
showing itself. The current which was ex- 
pected by some to sweep away all definite religion 
seems to have lost force, and there are counter-cur- 
rents which begin to tell. Mr. Matthew Arnold 
described the sea of faith as a tide hopelessly 
receding : 



I only hear 

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 
Retreating to the breath 

Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear 
And naked shingles of the world. 



But tides turn again, and they slacken for a time 
before they turn. 

English minds are practical in this sense, that 
they have difficulty in estimating things or proposi- 
tions in abstract forms or on abstract grounds, but 
shrewdly discern and weigh them in their tenden- 
cies and results. So long as a thing works well, 
they are wonderfully indifferent to the grounds and 
rationale of it. But if its effects are injurious, they 
droo it — all argument in its favor notwithstanding. 



Donald Fraser, D.D. 




RECOIL FROM UNBELIEF 



257 



It is in this way that England will recoil from unbe- 
lief. Let critics and talkers advance what they 
please, it begins to be perceived that skepticism has 
doleful and unprofitable issues. It leads up to a 
blank wall, or it wraps one in a cloud which shuts 
out all heavenly voices. There is no help or satis- 
faction in dry materialistic theories of life and his- 
tory. Pathetic is the acknowledgment of this by 
an able writer (Physicus) who has renounced and 
assailed theism : " I am not ashamed to confess 
that, with the virtual denial of God, the universe 
has lost to me its soul of loveliness. . . . I 
think of the appalling contrast between the hallowed 
glory of the Creed which once was mine, and the 
lonely mystery of existence as I now find it." 

In harmony with this confession, the tone of 
most of our educated skeptics has become sombre 
and subdued. They do not expect — I doubt if 
some of them seriously wish — to win the day. At 
the same time the more rough and scornful infidel- 
ity seems to be losing interest for the populace — it 
certainly is not gaining ground. The rank and file 
of the working-men seem to be zealous about noth- 
ing but their hours of labor and their wages, while 
their leaders are in many cases avowed Christians. 

The recorl of which we speak is consequent on a 
perception of certain very undesirable issues likely 
to follow the triumph of unbelief — e. g., loss of 
moral standards and securities. 

Who is entitled to fix a standard of absolute 
right and wrong, if there is no God ? What security 

Lamps of the Temple — 17 



258 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



is there for the vindication of the right, if there is 
no moral government of the world ? And as to the 
moral nature of man, what does it amount to, and 
what value or authority is to be attached to con- 
science under the theory of its origin which is 
taught by our skeptical philosophers ? Mr. Darwin 
described it as slowly " developed from the social 
instincts, and confirmed by instruction and habit." 

It is rather disquieting to have the people taught 
that there is no moral law and no moral Judge — 
that morality among men is " essentially social," and 
not individual, and that right is only another name 
for utility — wrong, therefore, another name for in- 
utility. The relief to our disquietude is that such 
propositions are practically incredible. No one 
whose conscience ever pronounced a serious " ought" 
or " ought not " can think that the verdict was 
merely an impression that the thing proposed was, 
or was not, likely to benefit a community. 

It can hardly be disputed that love to man had 
hitherto been closely associated with religious feel- 
ing, or love to God. The heathen world was almost 
a stranger to it, because, though it was covered 
with religions, the gods were not lovers of men. 
Not till the " philanthropy of God the Saviour ap- 
peared " did philanthropy show itself strong in the 
hearts of men. They had felt attachment to the 
natal soil, and to their own soil or nation, but no 
love to the world, no good-will to other nations. 
Nor was much pity shown to sick folk and captives, 
nor care taken for the relief of the unfortunate, or 



RECOIL FROM UNBELIEF 



259 



amelioration of the state of the poor they oppressed. 
It is much to be feared that if men should lose 
faith in God and in His philanthropy, a hard and 
unsympathetic temper would return, and generous 
efforts for the good of others would fall into con- 
tempt. 

All our eminent philanthropists have been 
Christians of a decided type, or Jews brought up in 
a Christian country. The more obscure, but splen- 
didly assiduous workers in our beneficent institu- 
tions and societies are believers. We have never 
found freethinkers disposed to give their time or 
money to the relief of the sick poor, or the mainte- 
nance of orphanages, or the rescue of shipwrecked 
sailors. They talk of Altruism ; but what have 
they ever done ? 

In our newspapers an eminent agnostic has been 
tilting with all his might at the General of the Sal- 
vation Army, and deploring the silliness and temer- 
ity of those who have subscribed £100,000 to enable 
Mr. Booth to set on foot a comprehensive scheme in 
behalf of the lowest orders of our population. It 
would have looked better if Professor Huxley, and 
those who are of his mind, had tried to face, in 
their own way, the problem with which the Salva- 
tion Army has stoutly resolved to grapple. The 
scientific lectures and public libraries, which seem 
to be their only resource, cannot touch " Darker 
England." They are out of it when the question is 
of raising the sunken and saving the lost. 

In a word. All our effective forms of social 



260 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



philanthropy have been inspired and maintained by 
religious faith and fervor. Who can be surprised 
that some misgiving should be felt as to the effect 
which the growth of infidelity would have on the 
great charities of England, and on the difficult, self- 
denying work which earnest men of various 
churches are now accomplishing in the byways and 
slums of our crowded cities? 

I am not aware that the world has ever seen an 
unbelieving hero. What we call heroism, that 
which shows itself in high-strung purpose and vic- 
torious constancy, has hitherto been found in souls 
that 

Followed the track each of some god, and caught 
Contagion from his nearness. 

Those men and women who have left the noblest 
memories had some vision of the Invisible and, 
felt the lifting power more of cords let down from 
heaven. And those touches of heroic love and pa- 
tience which brighten not a few lives that are spent 
in comparative obscurity, and redeem them from 
mere commonplace, are found usually, if not invari- 
ably, along with reverence and faith. 

The effect of prevailing irreverence and unbelief 
would be to put a stop to the race of heroes and 
heroines, to make men mere " lovers of their own 
selves," to sap and undermine all willingness to sac- 
rifice one's self for one's country, or for any noble 
cause. It is a poor prospect and the heart wails for 
it. Modern civilized life is quite flat and conven- 



RECOIL FROM UNBELIEF 



tional enough. We cannot afford to discourage the 
heroic strain. 

No one claims that false religions have befooled 
men with vain hopes ; but it will be admitted that 
one of those cravings of the soul which make room 
for religion is the desire to pierce the future with 
expectant eyes, and catch a glimpse of " far-off divine 
events." It will also be conceded, that if a religion 
be true, this craving will not be cheated, the hope 
will not be vain. And the value of this is obvious. 
What has more power than a well-grounded hope to 
soothe grief, sustain patience, sweeten toil, and 
ripen character? 

Faith is linked to hope. Look at the converse. 
Unfaith is linked to hopelessness. And what an 
enormous loss is this as respects the argument for 
endurance and the incentive to do well ! Hopeless- 
ness means, on the large scale, dullness, discontent, 
languor, discouragement. A world without a breath 
of heavenly hope about it ! Who wants to live there ? 
We recoil. 

Some relief from dire blank hopelessness has been 
sought in the idea of an impersonal futurism. But 
Lord Tennyson has truly called it " a faith as vague 
as all unsweet — " 

That each who seems a separate whole 
Should move his rounds, and fusing all 
The skirts of self again, should fall 

Remerging in the general soul. 

After all, the skeptic may disclaim responsibility 
for consequences, and adhere to his position that the 



262 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



Christian faith is without sufficient grounds and 
therefore cannot be rationally accepted, be the issue 
what it may. But while the credibility of the Gos- 
pel is being argued out, it is not unfair or unreason- 
able that we should indicate some of the probable 
effects of a triumphant unbelief, and show what a 
strong presumption they raise against it, and how 
they make the " inner man " recoil. 



HE book of Revelation is the last in the sacred 



canon. It is the most fascinating, the most 
stimulating, and the most comforting book in the 
Bible. There can be no subjects grander than its 
subjects: no visions sublimer than its visions. It 
sketches for us the outline of conflicts which are 
to end in irreversible triumph and everlasting glory. 
It bears us on through the centuries of time, and sets 
our feet within the gateway of eternity. 

Who wrote it ? The fisherman of Bethsaida, who 
began his spiritual career by attaching himself to 
John the Baptist. Graduating from the school of 
the Forerunner, he became a follower of Jesus, the 
Christ. Although, by natural temper, he was a son 
of thunder, he ripened under Christ's tuition into a 
character which made him, without envy on the part 
of his fellow-disciples, the best loved of the Lord. 
He grew up into the stature, symmetry, and beauty 
of the chiefest apostle, and closed his earthly course 



THE BOOK OF REVELATION. 



H. M. Scudder, D.D. 




THE BOOK OF REVELATION 263 



in becoming the last and the greatest of the prophets. 
The book of Revelation conducts us up to the lofti- 
est altitudes of prophecy. From its summits we 
overlook all that is to come. 

Where did he receive the communications and see 
the visions of which the book is composed ? He 
himself tells us that it was in a little island called Pat- 
mos, which lies near the coast of Asia Minor. He 
was in exile and in bodily tribulation, on account of 
his fidelity to the word of God, and the testimony of 
Jesus Christ (ch. i, 9). 

When was it written? Near the close of the first 
century. How was he fitted to become the recipient 
of such a revelation ? He afifims that " he was in the 
spirit." The spirit of God lifted him up into an ec- 
static state and equipped his soul with a supernatu- 
ral eyesight which commanded all the ages, as they 
were unrolled to his view, up to the point where 
they were merged in eternity. 

For what object was he thus endowed? It was 
in order that he might see for himself, and make 
known to others, the " things which must shortly 
come to pass." Do not misunderstand the word 
" shortly." As John, under the impulse of the 
Spirit, measured time, this shortness included a mil- 
lennium as one of its constituent elements. He was 
taught to view time from the divine standpoint, so 
that "a thousand years in His sight were but as yes- 
terday, when it is past, and as a watch in the night." 

What is the scheme of the book, and with what 
other portion of scripture has it a manifest affinity? 



264 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



It is throughout intimately related to the prophetic 
discourse which Jesus uttered and which is recorded 
in the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew. John 
heard that discourse. It sank deep into his mind 
and heart. It became the trend and track of his 
thought in regard to the future. And when his as- 
cended Lord, through the Holy Spirit, inspired and 
impelled him to set out that future in larger propor- 
tions the disclosures made to him were based upon 
that germinal discourse. If we wish to get, in any 
degree, the right view of this book we must carefully 
study the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, of 
which this book is the expansion. The chapter is 
the seed. The book is the outgrowth. 

There are those who say that they are afraid of 
the book, because it is full of mysteries. Nature 
and God rebuke and annul such fears. The consti- 
tution of matter is a mystery. We infer it to be 
atomic. But atoms do not submit themselves to 
our senses. Are we therefore to despair, and avoid 
the study of matter ? Shall we not learn what we 
can and wait for more light ? The forces, too, that 
work in the realm of nature, as heat, light, electrici- 
ty, magnetism and gravitation, confront us with 
numerous mysteries. Yet men examine and think, 
compare and conclude, and some of the mysteries 
have yielded themselves up to human thought and 
experiment, and others, in time, will doubtless sur- 
render to keener research and superior patience. 
The soul of man is a still greater mystery. Shall 
we cease to explore it ? Have the past explorations 



THE BOOK OF REVELATION 265 

resulted in nothing ? Above all, God, who is the 
maker of matter, the originator of its forces, and 
the creator of the soul, is Himself the Mystery of 
mysteries. Shall we, then, fear to launch our 
thoughts and emotions on that infinite ocean ? Is 
there any study that recompenses man's spirit like 
the contemplation of God ? That which has no 
mystery in it, that which has nothing to summon 
us to the subtlest and deepest activities of thought, 
soon palls upon us. Mystery is attractive, and to 
the diligent and devout student becomes, in the 
highest degree, rewardful. If the book of Revela- 
tion is mysterious, that is one potent reason for 
making it the subject of our meditation and study, 
our inquisitiveness and prayer. 

It is a book of incalculable value not only because 
of the line of future events which it unveils to us 
in its prophetic portions ; but also for the glorious 
truths which it so positively teaches, and so splendidly 
illustrates ; for the admonitory instructions with 
which it invests and guards the course of the indi- 
vidual Christian and the career of the church uni- 
versal, for the incentives with which it braces 
the tempted soul to loyalty, and arouses its flagging 
energies to perseverance ; for the consolations and 
joy which it pours forth as perennial streams from 
an exhaustless fountain, and for the shining goal 
which is so placed before us that it lights up with 
its brilliant radiance every stage of our pilgrimage. 
The sacredness, the divine fullness and the perfect 
completeness of this book are, in the last chapter, 



266 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



most solemnly affirmed : " For I testify unto every 
man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this 
book. If any man shall add unto these things, God 
shall add unto him the plagues that are written in 
this book ; and if any man shall take away from the 
words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take 
away his part out of the book of life, and out of 
the holy city, and from the things which are written 
in this book." 

Moreover, a benediction, initial and final, is pro- 
nounced upon those who read, hear, and keep the 
sayings of this book — initial in ch. I, 3, " Blessed 
is he that readeth and they that hear the words of 
this prophecy, and keep those things which are 
written therein," and final in the seventh verse of 
the last chapter, " Blessed is he that keepeth the 
sayings of the prophecy of this book." The obliga- 
tion to read and hear and obey the book, together 
with the blessedness of so doing, could not be more 
intensely emphasized. Having thus briefly consid- 
ered the book, let us contemplate. 



CHARACTER. 

Bishop Phillips Brooks, D.D. 

/CHARACTER: what is that? The absolute 
quality of a being, distinguished from its circum- 
stances. Behind even that closet of circumstances 
which we call the body, the intrinsic substance of 
the soul, what the manis, original, distinct, different 
from what any other man has ever been before, fed 



CHARACTER 



267 



through the channels of his circumstances, of what 
happens to him, but fed directly from first princi- 
ples, from fundamental and eternal truths, an utter- 
ance of the life of God, a true unit and harmony of 
personal existence, which can change every condi- 
tion and be itself unchanged, whose goodness and 
badness rest in the very fiber and substance of 
itself, a true soul. 

That is character. And then service — what do we 
mean by that? The other truth about each human 
nature ; that which is so separate and distinct is 
also true part of a unit greater than itself ; that the 
personality is portion of humanity ; that what 
belongs to it belongs also to the larger whole ; that 
it realizes and possesses itself only as it gives itself 
to the greater which enfolds it ; that it is its own 
only as it serves the life of man to which it belongs, 
as the eye keeps its equality of vision only as it 
dwells in the complete structure and dedicates its 
power of vision to the use of the whole body, 
hand and foot and tongue and heart, as they may 
need it. 

Now, the one great thing we need is to believe 
that in character and service lies the true life of a 
human creature. We do not thoroughly believe 
that. We think of the struggle to be perfect and 
the effort to serve humanity as suburbs #f human 
life, great districts into which excursions are to be 
made, heavens into which ecstatic flights are to be 
soared, not as the very city and citadel of humanity, 
to live outside of which is not to be a man. Until we 



268 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



do believe that with our hearts and souls, the higher 
regions are still closed to our powers, and they live, 
stunted and perverted, at their lower tasks ! 

And so we come to this, that it is only to man 
daring to think of himself nobly, divinely — ay, as 
the son of God — that there comes the possibility of 
putting his human powers to their perfect use. 
Character and service both fling their doors wide 
open to him who knows himself the son of God. 
Think how they stood wide open all the time to 
Jesus ! Think how He always lived within their 
ample gates! The divine soul within Him and the 
great work before Him, to be Himself and to save 
the world, these made His life. Therefore, let the 
foxes have their holes and the birds of the air their 
nests ; let Pilot sit upon his throne and the Phari- 
sees weigh their mint, anise and cummin. He 
took these splendid human capacities of ours and 
carried them beyond the stars into the heavenly 
worlds of character and service, and, when men 
listened — as they had to listen — hark, in these vis- 
ionary worlds, the same old human faculties had 
put out a new strength, and worked with a pulse of 
power and a throb of music which made heaven and 
earth stand still to listen. Yet it was our human 
patience with which He was patient, and our human 
bravery with which He was brave, and our human 
intelligence with v/hich He knew, and our human 
purity with which He was pure ; only they proved 
themselves divine when they attained their full 
humanity. 



JUDGE NOT 



269 



"JUDGE NOT"— A PLEA FOR CHARITY 
IN JUDGMENT. 

Alexander Maclaren, M.A., D.D. 

T I OW can we help " judging," and why should we 
not "judge?" The power of seeing into char- 
acter is to be coveted and cultivated, and the ab- 
sence of it makes simpletons, not saints. Quite 
true : but seeing into character is not what Jesus is 
condemning here. The "judging" of which He 
speaks sees motes in a brother's eye. That is to say, 
it is one-sided, and fixes on faults, which it magni- 
fies, passing by virtues. Carrion flies who buzz with 
a sickening hum of satisfaction over sores, and pre- 
fer corruption to soundness, are as good judges of 
meat as such critics are of character. That Mephis- 
tophelean spirit of detraction in this day has wide 
scope. Literature and politics, as well as social life 
with its rivalries, are infested by it, and it finds its 
way into the church and threatens us all. The race 
of fault-finders we have always with us, blind as 
moles to beauties and goodness, but lynx-eyed for 
failings, and finding meat and drink in proclaiming 
them in tones of affected sorrow. How flagrant a 
breach of the laws of the kingdom this temper im- 
plies, and how grave an evil it is, though thought 
little of, or even admired as cleverness and a mark of 
a very superior person, Christ shows us by this ear- 
nest warning, imbedded among his fundamental moral 
teachings. 

He points out first how certainly that disposition 



270 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



provokes retaliation. Who is the Judge that judges 
us as we do others ? Perhaps it is best to say that 
both the divine and the human estimates are in- 
cluded in the purposely undefined expression. Cer- 
tainly both are included in fact. For a carping 
spirit of eager fault-finding necessarily tinges people's 
feelings toward its possessor, and he cannot com- 
plain if the severe tests which he applied to others 
are used on his own conduct. A cynical critic can- 
not expect his victims to be profoundly attached to 
him, or ready to be lenient to his failings. If he 
chooses to fight with a tomahawk, he will be scalped 
some day, and the bystanders will not lament pro- 
fusely. But a more righteous tribunal than that of 
his victims condemns him. For in God's eyes the 
man who covers not his neighbor's faults with the 
mantle of charity has not his own blotted out by 
Divine forgiveness. 

This spirit is always accompanied by ignorance of 
one's own faults, which makes the man indulging it 
ludicrous. So our Lord would seem to intend by 
the figure of the mote and the beam. It takes a 
great deal of close peering to see a mote ; but the 
censorious man sees only the mote and sees it out of 
scale. No matter how bright the eye, though it be 
clear as a hawk's, its beauty is of no moment to him. 
The mote magnified, and nothing but the mote, is 
his object ; and he calls this one-sided exaggeration 
" criticism," and prides himself on the accuracy of 
his judgment. He makes just the opposite mistake 
in his estimate of his own faults, if he sees them at 



JUDGE NOT 



271 



all. We look at our neighbor's errors with a micro- 
scope, and at our own through the wrong end of a 
telescope. We see neither in their real magnitude, 
and the former fault is sure to lead to the latter. 
We have two sets of weights and measures ; one for 
home use, the other for foreign. Every vice has two 
names ; and we call it by the flattering and minimiz- 
ing one when we commit it, and by the ugly one 
when our neighbor does it. Everybody can see the 
hump on his friend's shoulders, but it takes some 
effort to see our own. David was angry enough at 
the man who stole his neighbor's ewe lamb, but 
quite unaware that he was guilty of a meaner, 
crueller theft. The mote can be seen ; but the beam, 
big though it be, needs to be " considered." So it 
often escapes notice, and will surely do so ; if we are 
yielding to the temptation of harsh judgment of 
others, every man may be aware of faults of his own 
very much bigger than any that he can see in an- 
other. For each of us may fathom the depth of our 
own sinfulness in motive, and unspoken, unacted 
thought, while we can see only the surface acts of 
others. 

Our Lord points out a still more subtle form of 
this harsh judgment, when it assumes the appear- 
ance of solicitude for the improvement of others, 
and teaches us that all honest desire to help in the 
moral reformation of our neighbors must be preceded 
by earnest efforts at mending our own conduct. If 
we have grave faults of our own undetected and un- 
conquered, we are incapable either of judging or of 



272 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



helping our brethren. Such efforts will be hypo- 
critical, for they pretend to come from genuine zeal 
for righteousness and care for another's good ; 
whereas their real root is simply censorious exaggera- 
tion of a neighbor's fault ; they imply that the person 
affected with such a tender care for another's eyes has 
his own in good condition. A blind guide is bad 
enough, but a blind oculist is a still more ridiculous 
anomaly. Note, too, that the result of clearing our 
own vision is beautifully put, not as being ability to 
see, but ability to cure our fellows. It is only the 
experience of the pain of casting out a darling evil, 
and the consciousness of God's pitying mercy as 
given to us, that makes the eye keen enough, and 
the hand steady and gentle enough, to pull out the 
mote. It is a delicate operation, and one which a 
clumsy operator may make very painful, and useless, 
after all. A rough finger or a harsh spirit makes 
success impossible. 

Christ's calling men dogs and swine does not sound 
like obeying His own precept. But the very shock 
which the words give at first hearing is part of their 
value. There are men whom Jesus, for all His gen- 
tleness, has to estimate thus. His pitying eyes were 
not blind to truth. It was no breach of infinite 
charity in Him to see facts, and to give them their 
right names ; and His previous precept does not bid 
us shut ours, or give up common sense. This verse 
limits the application of the preceding, and incul- 
cates prudence, tact, and discernment of character, 
as no less essential to His servants than the sweet 



JUDGE NOT 



273 



charity, slow to suspect and sorrowful to expose a 
brother's fault. The fact that His gentle lips used 
such words may well make us shudder as we think 
of the deforming of human nature into pure animal- 
ism, which some men achieve, and which is possible 
for all. 

The inculcation of discretion in the presentation 
of the truth may easily be exaggerated into a doc- 
trine of reserve which is more Jesuitical than Chris- 
tian. Even when guarded and limited, it may seem 
scarcely in harmony with the commission to preach 
the gospel to every creature, or with the sublime 
confidence that God's word finds something to ap- 
peal to in every heart, and has power to subdue the 
animal in every man. But the divergence is only 
apparent. The most expansive zeal is to be guided 
by prudence, and the most enthusiastic confidence 
in the universal power of the gospel does not take 
leave of common sense. There are people who will 
certainly be repelled, and perhaps stirred to furious 
antagonism to the gospel and its messengers, if they 
are not approached with discretion. It is bad to 
hide the treasure in a napkin ; it is quite as bad to 
fling it down without preparation before some peo- 
ple. Jesus Himself locked His lips before Herod, 
although the curious ruler asked many questions; 
and we have sometimes to remember that there are 
people who " will not hear the word," and who must 
first " be won without the word." Heavy rain runs 
off hard-baked earth. It must first be softened by a 
gentle drizzle. Luther once told this fable: "The 

I-amps of the Temple — 18 



274 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



lion made a great feast, and he invited all the beasts, 
and, among the rest, a sow. When all manner of 
costly dishes were set before the guests, the sow 
asked, ' Have you no bran ? ' Even so," said he, " we 
preachers set forth the most dainty dishes, — the for- 
giveness of sins, and the grace of God ; but they 
turn up their snouts, and grub for guilders." 



ESTERDAY the hand of every citizen held a 



1 flower, to-morrow every hand will hold a ballot. 
That was cast upon a soldier's grave to perpetuate 
the memory of valor. This will be cast into the bal- 
lot box to maintain the incorruptibility of justice. 
We owe much to the courage and the loyalty of the 
" Blue." We owe more to the wisdom and the puri- 
ty of the " Ermine." All battles have been fought 
in vain and the glorious heroes have died for naught 
if justice, the foundation of liberty and law, the 
guardian of right, are sacrificed to the ambitions and 
intrigues of partisan politics. In the marvelous de- 
velopment of this representative self-government 
the late civil war settled the important question of 
the indivisibility of the National Union. And the 
impartial historian will come to declare that Grant 
and Lee closed the debate which was begun by Ham- 
ilton and Jefferson. On both sides of that question 
were personally great and good men. They argued, 
debated and fought like moral and intellectual 



PLEA FOR A PURE JUDICIARY. 



Frank M. Bristol. 




PLEA FOR A PURE JUDICIARY 



giants. And on both sides thousands died for their 
mother-taught convictions. 

To-day they sleep on the same warm breast of 
impartial nature while on them gently falls the tears 
of the rain and smiles of the sunlight that wash away 
all stains and glorify all virtues. But another ques- 
tion has come up for settlement ; it has been grow- 
ing more and more important with the rapid increase 
of our population and the growth of our great cities. 

It involves more subtle principles and is more deli- 
cately and vitally related to government and civili- 
zation than was ever the question of State sover- 
eignty, or even of any constitutional form, such as 
monarchical or republican. This question may 
never plunge the nation into war, but it may plunge 
it into what is worse than war ; that is, anarchy. 

This one of the most significant questions of the 
age and the country is, shall the judiciary be ele- 
vated to dignity, independence and incorruptibility 
by a non-partisan election of judges, or shall antago- 
nistic parties insist upon a partisan expression of 
the people's choice, and thus degrade the high office 
to a political sinecure and convert the judiciary into 
a corrupt but powerful machine to serve the inter- 
ests of parties and of politicians ? If there is an institu- 
tion of free government that should stand high above 
the touch and control of politics, it is the judiciary. 
A non-partisan judiciary alone can be absolutely in- 
dependent and incorruptible in such a government 
as the United States, and any partisan attempt to 
destroy the independence and purity of the judiciary 



276 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



is a menace to the peace of society, to the right of 
every citizen, and to the security of government. 
By the people who look upon our government as 
Christian in its genius and genesis the judiciary is a 
divine institution. Its purity was insisted upon, its 
impartiality and independence commanded by the 
word of God : " Judges and officers shalt thou make 
thee in all thy gates, which the Lord thy Godgiveth 
throughout thy tribes ; they shall judge the people 
with just judgment, thou shalt not wrest judgment, 
thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift ; 
for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pre- 
vent the words of the righteous ; that which is alto- 
gether just shalt thou follow that then thou shalt 
live and inherit the land which the Lord thy God 
giveth thee." 

Thus would it seem that the very prosperity of 
the people and the stability of their nation were 
conditioned on the integrity, impartiality, and gift- 
refusing purity of their judges. From that ancient 
time to this the just and upright judge has been 
looked upon as the most honorable and excellent of 
men, and as the most important officer of govern- 
ment. In the language of the ancient publicist, 
" The names of judges great in their views, calm in 
their decisions, and pure in their lives, who are known 
by the whole people to have distinguished them- 
selves by unswerving honesty and stout hearts ; 
judges whose grasp, penetration, and blandness of 
mind were equally great, form a moral element in 
the history of a nation ; they constitute a most 



PLEA FOR A PURE JUDICIARY 



2/7 



valuable part of the inherited and traditional stock of 
national virtue, and give a moral tone and stability 
to the community for which nothing else of equally 
great effect can be attributed." But on the other 
hand no ignominy is deeper or more damnable than 
that with which a people's righteous anger and con- 
tempt have branded the low brow of the unjust or 
corrupt judge. 

The logical acumen of a Jeffries and the universal 
learning of a Bacon could never hide their corrup- 
tion or shield them from an immoral contempt. 
The people have always seemed to understand the 
importance of the judge's office, and have ever been 
more watchful over and deeply concerned in the 
judicial than in almost any other branch of govern- 
ment. The reason is that people are in closer con- 
tact with courts than with legislatures. Their rights 
and liberties are often more intimately related to 
judicial than to legislative action. In case of wrong 
their appeal is to the law, and the judge is the inter- 
preter of the law ; they understand that the main- 
tenance of their personal rights, the punishment and 
suppression of crime, the preservation of public 
morals, the security of property, life and social 
order are all finally dependent upon the wisdom, im- 
partiality, and integrity of the judges who hold the 
scales of justice and interpret the law. The people 
know further, from personal experience and suffer- 
ing, or from imagined injustices, that the most harm- 
ful, dangerous, liberty-subverting power in the 
world is a- partial, unjust or corrupt judge. 



278 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



No judge can be wholly independent who is 
beholden to any party for his election ; the first 
breach in the incorruptibility of the judiciary is 
effected when its independence is destroyed. There 
can be no doubt, as Professor Bryce observes, that 
"short terms and dependence on political influences 
induce timidity and oblige judges to keep on the 
right side of those who have given them their posi- 
tion." A partisan judiciary is necessarily unfair, 
prejudiced and unjust. Lord Brougham went so far 
even in monarchical England as to affirm that judges 
should not hold seats in elective legislatures, lest 
they be influenced by their constituencies. When 
those constituencies are composed of the vicious ele- 
ments, how evident it becomes that a judge who is 
politically created and controlled by them is in him- 
self a menace to the rights of the people and to the 
good order of society. 

Francis Leiber, the publicist, did not go too far 
when he said, " Certain it is that the judge in- 
jures the sacredness of his office in the same degree 
in which he becomes a partisan." 

But when the judge is the creature and servant of 
partisanship, holds his office by the will of politi- 
cians, and must pay for his position by such an 
administration of justice as will promote partisan in- 
terests, then is the sacredness of his office utterly 
destroyed, his independence weakened, and his 
incorruptibility sacrificed to ambition or fear, to cu- 
pidity or the love of power and the pride of place. 
To-morrow will be a critical day in the history of our 



PLEA FOR A PURE JUDICIARY 279 



city. Shall we cast our ballots? that is the first 
question. Once the question came to brave men, 
<l Shall we draw our swords ?" 

It may be said to-night in truth as well as charity, 
that brave and conscientious men drew swords on 
both sides of that great question, but to-morrow all 
the brave and all the conscientious will be on one 
side, and that the side of an independent, incorrup- 
tible, non-partisan judiciary; the dangerous elements 
will all be on the other side, and in favor of a parti- 
san, timid and ultimately corruptible judiciary. 
Shall we vote ? Have we any more important busi- 
ness on hand to-morrow than voting ? Can you and 
I do anything more serviceable to our city or country, 
to our homes and children? Can we lay a brighter 
tribute on the graves of the past or a holier bene- 
diction on the cradles of the future than by casting 
a white, high-minded non-partisan ballot for the 
maintenance of the dignity and incorruptible inde- 
pendence of our judiciary? 

As conscientiously as we go to our family altars to 
thank God for our homes, our liberties, and as 
devoutly as we supplicate the Divine blessing upon 
our children and our country, so should we go from 
our altars to the ballot box, and league ourselves 
with the God of Justice for the elevation of the 
judiciary above the contaminating influence of parti- 
san politics. Vote for the true, tried, incorruptible 
men presented by the non-partisan ticket, and vote 
with the pure, law-abiding and patriotic elements of 
this city, who know that the purity of the judiciary 



28o 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



depends largely upon its being non-partisan, and 
even more largely upon its having the support of 
the pure and patriotic. 

God help us as we go on the morrow to make 
judges in our gates, that we may elect men who 
shall judge the people with just judgment, who shall 
not wrest judgment to service of politics, nor respect 
persons because they are fellow partisans, nor take 
a gift as pay for party service, nor prevent the 
words of the righteous that crime may go unpun- 
ished and the rights of the people be sacrificed. 
And they follow that which is altogether just, that 
then we shall live and inherit this land which the 
Lord thy God giveth us. 



A WORD TO THE POOR. 

Washington Gladden, D.D. 

If AVE you ever seen the Apollo Belvidere ? It 
is the statue of a man chiselled out of marble 
— one of the noblest figures that art has ever pro- 
duced. Do you think that this statue would be 
made any nobler or more beautiful if men should 
put gold rings on its fingers, and gold bracelets on 
its wrists, and strings of gold beads upon its neck, t 
and should trick it out with ribbons, and buttons, 
and fringes. Would not these tawdry ornaments 
detract from the simple dignity and majesty of that 
model of manly grace and strength ? Well, the acci- 
dents of wealth, and rank, and office, and station, 
cannot add much more of ornament or value to a 



CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 



28l 



true man than could trinkets like these to the 
beauty of the Belvidere Apollo. His manhood 
itself, to all clear insight, is something infinitely 
grander and diviner than these belongings. 

I beseech you, then, ye poor, remember this — if 
you have not wealth you have manhood, and much 
more than this have the lordliest of men ! What 
though upon the garments of some of your fellow-pil- 
grims in this world a little more of the dust of earth 
has gathered ? Came you not all from the same 
starting-place ? Travel you not all to the same des- 
tination ? And when you reach it, will not your 
earthly possessions be just the same as theirs ? Why, 
then, should they lightly esteem you, or why should 
you despise yourselves ? I charge you, therefore, to 
remember always that, however honorable it may 
be to be a rich man, or a titled man, or a famous 
man, anyway, after all, it is the crowning glory and 
honor of earth simply to be a man. 



M I my brother's keeper?" was the sad ques- 



tion of Cain. The Lord's answer to that ques- 
tion is, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 
The consent of reason is that we are mutually 
related and mutually dependent. Wherever the 
student of nature may turn he beholds unity in 
variety. From the modest flower hiding at his feet 
to suns and systems which cluster and move in 



CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM. 



L. P. Mercer. 




282 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



infinite spaces, he beholds ever the same mystery, 
distinct variety bound and held in larger unity. 

Every individual is an organization of parts, 
self-centered and distinct, yet fitting with the ideal 
plan and aggregating to produce a larger unit, which 
shall itself become a distinct part in a still larger 
whole. There are not two blades of grass exactly 
alike in all the earth's green carpet, nor two worlds 
nor systems of worlds accurately alike in all the 
prodigious realms of astronomy, and yet not one 
thing stands alone and unrelated. Nothing can 
be displaced or fail of its appointed function with- 
out so far disturbing the whole vast economy. 
In this universal fact we may behold the image of 
the divine order in society, which men cannot break 
without introducing social anarchy more or less 
pronounced. 

The whole is like its parts. Each human life is 
only fractioned, incomplete, and imperfect, meeting 
continually other lives, by which it may more nearly 
attain unity and symmetry. No more hopeless 
thing can be said of any soul than that it is " left 
to itself." The universe of God is keyed to an 
economy of mutual service, and to drop out of that 
is to be lost, indeed. 

Man, as we are in the habit of saying, in the 
tritest manner possible, is a social being; only we 
conceive but partially and dimly what we ought to 
mean by it. Now I maintain it is high time we 
were learning exactly what these phrases, " social 
relations" and "social obligations" mean. 



CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 



283 



What, therefore, let us ask, is society? On the 
simple assumption that the whole is like its parts, 
we should conclude that society is a grand man, 
composed of individuals of energy, variety of genius 
and function, each perfect in his place and degree 
and all bound together by a common life, organizing 
them to a common end. 

Paul taught the spirit of this idea, and wrote 
plainly to the Corinthian brethren under the figure 
of the human body, of the church, " Ye are the 
body of Christ and members in particular." The 
very variety in union constitutes the perfection of 
the body. 

This thought, slowly making its way, is seen in 
all the noble aspirations and deeds of our century. 
It is sweetening our Christianity, and to those who 
have eyes for long range, every development of 
social science is bringing it out more distinctly. No 
man can say of another, " I have no need of thee." 
The law of human life is mutual need and mutual help. 
If this, then, be the meaning of society, revealed of 
love and imaged in everything, it is manifest that 
it can only be realized when each seeks the good 
of all, and all the good of each. This principle, only 
expounded as the law of use, and applied to the life 
of individuals and societies as the "Golden Rule" 
of Christ, the Lord, is the supreme personal and 
social need of the age. 

The Lord's kingdom is a kingdom of uses, and he 
is greatest among men who performs the most emi- 
nent uses, and he is chief who is of greatest service. 



284 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



It involves the idea that labor, so called, that useful 
work, is not a curse but a blessing ; that it is the 
only means of being useful and the only charter of 
right in the commonwealth. It involves that all 
useful work contributes to the common good, and 
according to the excellence and importance of the 
use, and that the world draws thence — that is, from 
the c©mmon good — honor and recompense, accord- 
ing to the need of its use. It involves that work 
done and uses performed by individuals, exalt the 
common good so far as there is mutual understand- 
ing and co-operative effort, and this involves that 
there must be order and subordination. 

It is involved that property and ownership are a 
trust, and that the only divine title to possession, 
whether of one talent or ten, is the willingness to 
use it for the common good ; and that honors and 
dignities do not belong to the person, but to the 
office and use which he performs. It is involved 
that every man who looks to himself alone and 
seeks to subvert the common good to his own 
interest in his office or employment, that every one 
who held property as his own to do what he will 
or nothing with it, as he may choose, becomes a 
center of social disorder. That which in our day is 
called a competition is simply and purely Ishmaelit- 
ism — " his hand is against every man and every 
man's hand is against him." It is the reign of hate 
essentially and really. 

Such must be the ultimate outcome of the princi- 
ple, that the battle is to the brave and persevering 



CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 



285 



who are stout-hearted enough to lose sight of the 
miseries of the slain in the hope of personal victory 
and achievement. For in the exact proportion 
that a man makes himself the center and seeks to 
compel others to revolve around him — which he 
does when he makes his own ends supreme and 
strives to force others into his service — he antago- 
nizes the whole human race. 

The Nation is the larger man, and must realize 
its usefulness so. And here we put our finger upon 
a popular fallacy — the notion that freedom means 
liberty to do anything which we can secure the 
power to do A civil government without author- 
ity is an impossible conception, and the only pos- 
sible freedom in municipality, community or 
individual consists in self-compelled obedience to 
the dominant and recognized principles of social 
and civil relations. 

We have to-day opportunity to learn wisdom. 
Let us not shut our eyes. Honest labor lays its 
hand upon the property of railroad corporations, 
saying, " Pay me what thou owest." The idle and 
vicious, with no respect for law or property, or the 
good of anybody, take up the cry, " Pay me what 
thou owest," and enter upon the work of destruction. 
An outraged community turns upon them, saying, 
" Pay me what thou owest ; work, and reproduce 
what thou hast destroyed, or starve.' 

But back of all this there is a law of social 
weal, inspired by God and Heaven, and you might 
as well try to stop the world from turning by 



286 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



laying hold of the trees, as try to prevent its opera- 
tion. 

That law says to wealth, to enterprise, to govern- 
ment, to labor, to idleness, to viciousness, to one 
and all : " Pay me what thou owest ; you owe 
mutual service and mutual help. If you do not 
render it you must go to the torments of your own 
disorder." 



HE Church of Christ pleads ever with humanity, 



" Give yourselves a chance. Come and see. Do 
not only talk about the kingdom and the power of 
the Son of God; understand that He is alive; 
acquaint yourselves with Him. Ask that you may 
see Him, not merely with the eye of the natural 
intelligence, but with the eye of the illuminated 
spirit. Do not waste life in framing theories of the 
beautiful, but come, as did Nathanael, into the pres- 
ence of Christ. Mark the story of His earthly life 
in the gospels, and reflect that what He was then 
He is now. Speak to Him in prayer as to an ah\ 
powerful Friend who hears and who, as He sees best, 
will answer. Touch the garment of His humanity 
in sacraments, that upon you, too, as upon one of 
old, virtue may come out of Him. Open your 
conscience to the purifying and consoling influences 
of His Spirit ; open your hearts to the constraining 
generosities of His dying love/' The real difficulty 



THE PLEA OF THE CHURCH. 



H. P. Liddon, D.D. 




THE CHURCH AT WAR 



287 



with thousands in the present day is, not that Chris- 
tianity has been found wanting, but that it has 
never been seriously tried. They have been inter- 
ested in it, but have remained at a distance from it. 
They have passed their best years in supposing that 
Christ's religion is a problem to be ceaselessly 
argued about, when, lo ! it is a life to be spent at the 
feet of a living Master, and it justifies itself only 
and completely when it is lived. 



THE CHURCH AT WAR WITH THE 
WORLD. 



HE Church of God on earth is always at war 



with the world. Conciliation is only possible 
by the surrender of one of the opposing forces. 
The old cry, " Crucify Him !" still comes from 
unbelief. At present the attacks on Christianity 
are many. Laudations are heaped upon the char- 
acter of Jesus as the ideal man. The attacks are 
directed against the institution of which He is the 
very soul. Take away His divinity and the ideal 
man Jesus goes with it. It is treason for Christians 
to consider that subject. 

Everywhere we find among believers a feeling of 
timidity. There seems to be a belief that if Chris- 
tianity is to survive it must be made over again, 
creeds rewritten, priests unfrocked and sacraments 
abolished. Those who are dismayed by the cheer- 
ing from the other side of the lines are saying with 



Bishop McLaren. 




288 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



Clepas of old, "We trusted that He had been He 
who would redeem Israel." 

In Chicago to-day we see these living matters 
pressing forward. The real issue is, " Is modern 
civilization to be molded or not by the incarnate 
God, Jesus Christ ? " There is no neutral ground. 
The chief point of attack during this century has 
been the Bible. It has been a tremendous struggle 
between Christianity and destructive criticism. 

The second attack is that of the comparative 
religionists who would assign to Christianity the posi- 
tion of present-best in the evolution toward a final- 
best. They hold that Jesus is, after all, only a 
grand hero of religion. Similarity is not sameness. 
The similarity of religions and men is a proximate 
feature, not an ultimate conclusion, There is a 
boundary line beyond which resemblances cease. 
There we discover the difference between Christianity 
and the non-Christian systems. Christianity has 
nothing to fear in the crucible of honest comparison. 
But Christians must be stubbornly faithful to truth 
rather than amiable toward error. 



WHY THE BIBLE SHOULD BE STUDIED. 



HAT determines the character of any activity 



is the purpose back of it, and this should not 
be forgotten in Biblical study. The word of God 
is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, 
for instruction in righteousness. By it the man of 



John Henry Barrows, D.D. 




WHY THE BIBLE SHOULD BE STUDIED 289 

God is thoroughly furnished unto all good works. 
This supreme use of the Scriptures to make men 
holy should furnish the motive for that study. 
They are designed to build character, and therefore 
when the rabbis used the word of God as a parade 
ground for their mental and spiritual pride or con- 
ceit they turned the pastures of the Lord, where 
His Lambs were to be fed, into a field of miserable 
vanity. The purpose of God's message is to make 
us like God, and I have known men who by trying 
to incorporate into their lives such divine v/isdom as 
is found in the twelfth chapter of Romans and thir- 
teenth chapter of First Corinthians, appeared to me 
to have made better use of the Scriptures than did 
the learned Pharisees of old, who borrowed money ; 
or than many others whom I have known, thor- 
oughly familiar with the prophecies, contentious 
over their interpretations of the doctrines, busily 
engaged in counting the " horns of the beast" and 
learned in the mystic numbers of Revelation, who 
had not succeeded in bringing home to the hive of 
character very much of that sweetness and light 
which the bees who are busy in the Garden of the 
Lord ought to gather in richest abundance. I fear 
that pride, that destroyer of every virtue, that harpy 
at every spiritual feast, has spoiled much of even 
the most earnest study of the word of God. Read- 
ing the history of Biblical interpretation I have 
come to feel that multitudes have entered this 
forest thick set with trees of God, not to gather the 
fruitage but to fashion clubs and lances with which 

Lamps of the Temple — 19 



290 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



to smite one another. We must not forget that we 
may speak with the tongues of men and of angels 
(and both men and angels have spoken to us out of 
the Divine Word), that we may understand all mys- 
teries and fill our minds with Biblical knowledge, 
and indeed have all faith in the divine revelation 
whereby mountains of difficulty are removed from 
our path ; and yet, unless this laborious investiga- 
tion ministers to love in the soul it profiteth noth- 
ing. You have never seen pictures or the richly- 
robed, long-bearded, proud appearing Jewish rabbis 
in the same group with the sweet face of a child 
without instinctively and truly feeling that the 
child's loving and teachable heart contained more 
of God than shone from the proud eyes and scorn- 
ful mien of the haughtiest Pharisee. It is not the 
spirit of curiosity about the external facts of Bibli- 
cal history and literature, or about the time of the 
fulfillment of prophecies, that leads us very far into 
the heart of the Scriptures. Every other purpose, 
however laudable, must be subordinated to the one 
grand purpose of finding that truth which shall trans- 
form us more and more into the sweetness, purity, 
patience, loving-kindness and manliness which were 
the supreme disposition of Jesus Christ. 

It is often said that what a traveler brings home 
from Europe depends usually on what he takes to 
it, and this is pre-eminently the case in the study 
of the Bible. The spirit in which we approach it 
determines largely what we find in it. Its words are 
sometimes dead to us, because we have no spiritual 



WHY THE BIBLE SHOULD BE STUDIED 29I 



life in our hearts, and hence we should never forget 
that though God comes to us in His word He also 
comes to us by living contact with our own souls. 
In Him we live and move and have our being. Our 
lives impinge upon the Divine Life. God's Holy 
Spirit moves upon our consciences and our intel- 
lects and our affections. Men with no written 
Bibles in their hands have felt the power of the 
Holy Ghost, and even a limited Christian experience 
has taught some of us that the Bible becomes a new 
book when we bring to it that penetrating insight, 
that moral sensitiveness and that divine hunger 
which are produced in the soul by the spirit of God. 
Some of you have been amazed after passing 
through a great sorrow to find the Word of God 
was written especially for you. As a man who has 
met an accident and is laid aside from work is sur- 
prised to discover what multitudes have had a simi- 
lar misfortune; as parents losing a first-born child 
enter upon a new world and find multitudes of 
parental hearts all about them are sore with similar 
grief, so after any great experience of life, whether 
of sorrow or the deeper experience of forgiven sin, 
we come back to this wondrous Book of God and 
find it a heaven, bright with innumerable stars all 
shining upon us. This book was meant to meet us 
in every experience. The men who wrote it were 
very human, and like ourselves they had passed 
through these trials that seem to us so strange and 
novel, and we are surprised *to find in Job, in David, 
in Jeremiah, in Peter and John, men able to give us 



292 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



the magic password into the courts of God's conso- 
lations. 

And thus we are brought to consider a truth 
too often forgotten and sometimes never learned, 
that the Bible, although a revelation from God, 
is also human writing, the literature of a specially 
chosen people. It is the record of their history, 
poetry and prophecy. It was over sixteen hundred 
years in making and thus covers a vast section of 
the world's history. The writers were not mechan- 
ical instruments, serving as " the pen of God " with 
which He wrote His laws and His promises, just 
as a sculptor might pick up his chisel and cut out 
an inscription on a marble slab. These men were 
like ourselves, with our passions, peculiarities, limita- 
tions, sins. They were peasants with no large 
share of human culture ; they were kings full of the 
sadness which is engendered by earthly vanities , 
they were statesmen who had great practical prob- 
lems to solve ; they were poets tingling with the 
beauty and pathos and tragedy of human life ; they 
were chroniclers with prosaic minds laboring to 
record national events ; they were biographers tak- 
ing in hand to set in order that which they certainly 
knew concerning Jesus Christ. There is infinite 
variety in this most human of all books, and there- 
fore it meets an infinite variety of human needs. 
"The Bible," as Herder wrote, " must be read in a 
human manner, for it is a book written by men 
for men." The late Mathew Arnold has rendered 
some service in teaching us to read the Scriptures 



WHY THE BIBLE SHOULD BE STUDIED 293 



as literature, the expression of human thought and 
feeling in certain surroundings with certain historic 
backgrounds and requiring for their right under- 
standing those helps and illustrations which are 
needful to the student of Dante or Shakespeare. 
The Bible would have no such hold on human 
hearts if it were believed to be mechanically inspired 
in every part. Such a belief is an impossibility 
with those who have recognized the human elements 
in this sacred literature , and such a theory, now 
generally discarded by scholars, has led multitudes 
to skepticism, and still more, into utter bewilder- 
ment ; and such a theory is not needful to a whole- 
some doctrine of inspiration. As President Patton 
said not long ago, ' ; the Bible is made up of many 
parts written in countries and ages far separate and 
by minds very diverse. The parts are like the 
pieces in a tessellated pavement, so arranged that in 
the center we discover the figure of a cross. They 
are so arranged that, with all their diversity, they 
make a sublime unity in Jesus Christ, and this is in 
harmony with orthodox teaching, that all Scripture 
is given by inspiration of God, and that holy men 
wrote as they were inspired by the Holy Ghost." 
The irrefragable argument for the inspiration of the 
Scriptures is indeed this marvelous fact, that the 
innumerable varieties of the Scriptural literature 
have been divinely arranged into the sublime har- 
mony and oneness which we discover in this volume. 
Firmly assured of this unity, which demonstrates 
inspiration, we may find all profitable delights in 



294 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



studying the many faces of human experience, the 
many varieties of human costume, the many fields 
of earthly scenery, which have caught and reflected 
the one light of heaven. If, as I believe, there was 
never a time when the Bible has been so widely and 
profitably studied as now, it is partly because such 
books as Stanley's Lectures on the History of the 
Jewish Church, and the Popular Lives of Moses, 
David and Paul, and the fast thronging Biographies 
of Jesus have set forth so vividly the human and 
historic elements which enter into the Bible. 



SECULARIZING RELIGION. 

John Cunningham. 

T KNOW nothing which has exercised a more per- 
nicious influence on religion than that unhappy 
divorce which has been effected between religious 
duty and every-day duties of life. When a mother 
is faithfully tending her children, and making her 
hearthstone clean and her fire burn bright, that 
everything may smile a welcome to her weary hus- 
band when he returns from his work, it is never 
dreamed that she is religiously employed. When 
a man works hard during the day, and returns to his 
family in the evening to make them all happy by 
his placid temper and quiet jokes and dandlings on 
his knee, the world does not think — perhaps he 
does not think himself — that there is religion in any- 
thing so common as this. Religion is supposed to 
stand aloof from such familiar scenes. But to 



SECULARIZING RELIGION 



2 9 S 



attend the church, to take the sacrament, to sing a 
psalm, to say a prayer, is religion. Now God help 
this poor sinful world if religion consists only in 
these things and not also in the other ! 

Some men may think I have thus secularized 
religion. On the contrary, I have wished to sanctify 
and make religious that which is usually regarded as 
secular. " That which God hath cleansed call not 
thou common or unclean." I wish religion to tinge 
everthing with its own divine hues ; and that what- 
ever we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, we 
should do it to the glory of God. I wish every 
man to feel that whatever work he has in hand he is 
therein God's workman. I wish that as the sun 
bathes with his light not merely the mountain and 
the plain, but the tiniest plant that grows in the 
crevice of the rock, that as he shines not merely 
upon the carved cathedral, but upon the cottage 
home, so it should be believed and felt that the Sun 
of righteousness illuminates with its soft radiance 
everything it shines upon, giving it the highest of all 
consecrations. 

The work of the Christian is not really different 
from the work of the Christ. Every man has his 
mission, and it is to manifest God. Moving in 
different spheres, with different tasks assigned us, 
we may be called to do our work in different ways ; 
but still this is our work. Every man should be, in 
his own person and character, like the Christ, a 
manifestation of God. The more virtuous, the 
more actively benevolent, the more zealous for all 



296 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



good we become, the more we manifest God. By 
discharging the duties of our station, or by honestly 
struggling to rise to a higher one, we perform our 
heaven-allotted task, and so manifest God. In 
short, by living like Jesus and dying like Jesus, we 
manifest God. God, the all-good, shines out in 
every good word that is spoken and in every good 
work that is done. 

Last of all, let me remind you that " life is short 
and time is fleeting." " Whatsoever therefore your 
hand findeth to do, do it with all your might." 
Jesus of Nazareth, according to tradition, died 
while still a young man, but before He died He felt 
that His work was done. How few at the early age 
of thirty-three have well begun their God-given 
work ! How many with gray hairs on their heads 
are carried to the grave with their work but half 
done ! I believe it often forms one of the bitterest 
elements in the cup of death that life has been 
wasted and opportunities of doing good allowed to 
slip past, and when the end comes nothing either 
great or good has been accomplished. It is a ter- 
rible thing to look back upon an utterly lost life. 
And why should it be so with any of you? All of 
you may live useful lives. Many of you might 
live noble lives ; some of you might leave your mark 
behind you, and live a second life in the grateful 
memories of men. Remember, there may be true 
goodness, and even true greatness, a manifestation 
of all that is most divine, in the discharge of the 
humblest duties, in the most obscure station, as 



MEMORIES OF THE WAR 



297 



well as in playing a grand part with the eyes of the 
world fixed upon you. How much to be envied the 
man who, when approaching the close of a well- 
spent life, feels that he has at least done some good 
in his day, and thus that he has so far fulfilled his 
mission, even though he may not have altogether 
finished the work which his Father had given him 
to do < 



MEMORIES OF THE WAR OF THE 



HE war was and is as a historic fact of sufficient 



1 importance and sufficiently suggestive to com- 
mand the attention of the American people until 
such time as they are plunged into a still greater 
conflict. The armies of the North and South met 
in over 2,000 skirmishes and battles. The young 
men of this age must not forget that the greatest 
battles of history were fought during our civil war. 
Wellington's loss at Waterloo was less than 12 per 
cent., while Grant's at Shiloh was 30. From the dis- 
covery of America until 1861 but ten American 
generals were killed in battle, while in the four 
years of our civil war 100 general officers fell while 
leading their triumphant columns. We propose to 
keep these facts before the people, that they may 
know at what cost American liberties are theirs. 
He who reads the lives of the heroic dead and the 
battles in which they fought will hold more sacredly 



REBELLION. 



W. H. Bolton, D.D. 




298 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



to the principles for which they fought, and thus 
perpetuate a patriotism and loyalty such as may 
render safe the life of liberty in the years to 
come. These days recall those days of prayer, 
when every home held telegraphic communication 
with God and the angels, and heard the voice 
speaking unto them and obeyed ; and the prayers 
of this land to-day will have a new motive, touched 
by the spirit of those who will rest in unknown 
graves until the angels fly and trumpets wake the 
dead. There are clouds that a June sun cannot 
burn away. Thousands sleep in Southern soil, 
while 

Sorrow and love go side by side. 
Nor height nor depth can e'er divide 

Their heaven-appointed bands ; 
Those dear associates are one, 
Not till the race of life is run, 

Disjoin their wedded hands. 

This service will perpetuate itself so long as the 
principles for which our comrades died are cherished. 
We say by our organic presence, it shall never cease ; 
but, alas! this organization will soon be gone. No 
form ever clothed in blue will remain ; no child of 
soldiers will appear to close the wasted ranks ; no 
bread box nor marble slab will mark the graves of 
soldiers. But the service will live when these 
cheeks are pale as ashes. Memorial days will be 
brighter and American soldiers will be honored. 

A comparison of the great world's battles with 
those of the civil war was made. The prediction 



MEMORIES OF THE WAR 



2 99 



was ventured that in less than a century we may 
lead all nations in point of population, though there 
relatively will be a decrease in the number of im- 
migrants. The speaker believed the sustaining 
power of the United States would be adequate to 
the demands. We are worth as a Nation $57,000,- 
000,000; and beneath the folds of our flag the 
wealth of numberless millions awaits the coming of 
unborn generations. 

The soldiers fought for the grandest principle on 
earth. We ought to cover their graves as Moses 
covered the burning bush and the speaking 
mountain, with a history that shall inspire the 
prophets of state until hope is lost in the full 
fruition of brotherly love. Every man claiming 
home and protection in a republic should become 
familiar with the laws and institutions of his home, 
and identify himself with its supporters. Suffrage 
to-day means more than it ever did before. We 
cannot tolerate sectional feeling. The flag must be 
the emblem of liberty, equal rights, and national 
unity to every man everywhere. I hope the day 
will speedily come when no other flag can with 
safety be unfurled on these shores. Let the stars 
and stripes float on all occasions and for all interests 
from sea to sea. Its silken folds bring the same 
blessings of peace and protection to the dwellers on 
the rock-bound shores of old Maine or to the sun- 
kissed slopes of California, as the dwellers on the 
evergreen shores of Florida and the snow-clad hills 
of Alaska. 



300 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



Then suffer not the price of liberty to be forgot- 
ten. God grant that the spirit of '76 and '61 may 
fill the hearts of the next generation with that devo- 
tion that shall preserve the Nation's honor and 
guard forever the inarch of liberty. So live, my 
comrades, that you may increase the honor of those 
of whom the poet sings : 

On Fame's eternal camping-ground, 

Their silent tents have spread, 
While glory crowns with endless years 
The bivouac of the dead. 



THE CONSEQUENCES OF ATHEISM. 

W. E. Channing, D.D. 

CEW men suspect, perhaps no man comprehends, 
the extent of the support given by religion to 
every virtue. No man, perhaps, is aware how much 
our moral and social sentiments are fed from this 
fountain ; how powerless conscience would become 
without the belief of a God ; how palsied would be 
human benevolence, were there not the sense of a 
higher benevolence to quicken and sustain it ; how 
suddenly the whole social fabric would quake, and 
with what a fearful crash it would sink into hopeless 
ruins, were the ideas of a Supreme Being, of account- 
ableness, and of a future life, to be utterly erased 
from every mind. Once let men thoroughly believe 
that they are the work and sport of chance ; that no 
Superior Intelligence concerns itself with human 



THE CONSEQUENCES OF ATHEISM 



30I 



affairs ; that all their improvements perish forever at 
death ; that the weak have no guardian, and the 
injured no avenger; that there is no recompense for 
sacrifices to uprightness and the public good ; that 
an oath is unheard in heaven ; that secret crimes 
have no witness but the perpetrator ; that human 
existence has no purpose, and human virtue no un- 
failing friend ; that this brief life is everything to us, 
and death is total, everlasting extinction, — once let 
men thoroughly abandon religion, and who can con- 
ceive or describe the extent of the desolation which 
would follow? 

We hope, perhaps, that human laws and natural 
sympathy would hold society together. As reason- 
ably might we believe, that, were the sun quenched 
in the heavens, our torches could illuminate, and 
our fires quicken and fertilize the creation. What is 
there in human nature to awaken respect and tender- 
ness, if man is the unprotected insect of a day? and 
what is he more, if atheism be true? Erase all 
thought and fear of God from a community, and 
selfishness and sensuality would absorb the whole 
man. Appetite, knowing no restraint, and poverty 
and suffering, having no solace or hope, would 
trample in scorn on the restraints of human 
laws. Virtue, duty, principle, would be mocked 
and spurned as unmeaning sounds. A sordid 
self-interest would supplant every other feeling, 
and man would become in fact, what the theory 
of atheism declares him to be, a companion for 
brutes ! 



302 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



HOW TO COUNT OUR DAYS. 



Dr. Gregg. 



LL days past are not to be counted in reckoning 



• up the life which is behind us, although all com- 
ing days are. It is not good spiritual arithmetic to 
treat the past and the future alike. There are days 
in the past which have a history, but there are days 
there which have no history. There are historic 
gaps in life. There are blanks in life. Take a con- 
crete case ! There is a silence of a whole year in 
the biography of David. For twelve months he 
sung no song of praise — thought no great thoughts, 
sent nothing good down to the ages — harp and con- 
science were silent. When he lived in a spiritual 
atmosphere and did spiritual deeds, his life was re- 
corded ; but when he stepped down from spirituality 
to carnality, there were great blank leaves in his 
book of life. Prior to the period when the prophet 
Nathan pointed the finger of reproof at him, and 
brought his conscience back, there was an awful 
waste of a whole year. What we notice in the story 
of David we notice in the story of Israel. There 
was a blank in the story of the Jewish nation, a 
waste of forty years. This blank, this wilderness 
period, proclaimed to the world that golden oppor- 
tunities had been trampled under foot. What an 
historic gap the past centuries of vagabondage, upon 
the part of the wandering Jew, have made in the 
later history of Israel, the convenant people of God. 
If the Israelites had been true to themselves and to 




THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD 303 

God they might have had nineteen centuries of mag- 
nificent history. We cannot forget what they pro- 
duced during the fifteen centuries prior to the com- 
ing of Christ. They gave the world the moral law 
which has been the basis of all true and helpful 
legislation ever since. They built up the Book of 
God, which to this day instructs mankind and leads 
all true human thinking. We owe them our loftiest 
conceptions of God, our purest morals and our high- 
est ideals of human rights. How grandly the in- 
spired Paul lauds them ! His words flame and 
glow. " Who are the Israelites ? They are they to 
whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and 
the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the 
service of God, and the promises ; whose are the 
fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh, Christ 
came, who is over all, God blessed forever, Amen." 



CHRIST, THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD. 

John Cunningham, D.D. 

\17'HAT was this God-given work which Jesus 
could now say He had finished ? I think we 
have an explanation of this in the context : " I have 
glorified Thee on the earth : I have manifested Thy 
name." These two things are not greatly different. 
In manifesting God we glorify God : and therefore 
we may safely say that the manifestation of God was 
the work which Jesus felt had been given Him to do 
and which He had done. And what work more truly 
grand than to make known God to a people who 



304 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



were yet in a great manner ignorant of Him ! To 
give the world one new glimpse of God were worthy 
of the noblest life that was ever lived. 

But how manifest God? " The heavens declare 
the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His 
handiwork." We have but to look to the illimitable 
universe for a manifestation, the grandest possible 
manifestation, of the power and wisdom of God. But 
it is certain such a manifestation was not enough for 
the reason of man. Amid all the marvels of creation 
— at the base of mountains which pierced the sky, 
on the shores of seas which no plummet could 
fathom and no vision embrace — men were found 
worshiping their own impure conceptions embodied 
in marble or stone, or vainly rearing altars to a God 
they confessed to be unknown. Nature, thousand- 
tongued though she be, had not let out the great 
secret of God. 

Did Christ, then, come into our world to manifest 
to us God as He is ? Such a revelation had been im- 
possible. In one sense God ever must be unknown 
— unknowable. The finite cannot contain the infi- 
nite. Stretch our faculties as we may, we cannot 
comprehend the incomprehensible. We cannot take 
within our grasp that which is beyond all grasp, the 
absolute, the unconditioned — the great Being who in- 
habits eternity and fills all space with His presence. 
When we make the endeavor, our feeble intellect, 
baffled and beat back, is compelled to acknowledge 
that it cannot " by searching find out God." Even 
in the future world, where we have reason to believe 



THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD 



305 



our faculties will be greatly enlarged, our knowledge 
of Deity will still be very imperfect, I might almost 
say infinitely imperfect, as the finite can never bear 
any relation at all to the infinite. We may, and no 
doubt shall, know much which we do not know now ; 
we may obtain glimpses of His glory far brighter than 
any we have upon earth ; but still we shall never 
know Him as He is. Just as this fair world at pres- 
ent hangs like a mighty curtain screening its Creator 
from our view, yet showing His shadow projected 
upon it ; so in eternity shall the God of heaven be 
manifested only through the golden glories of heaven, 
and refuse to be gazed upon with unveiled eye, for 
He must ever dwell amid light inaccessible and full 
of glory ; no mortal eye hath seen Him, or can see 
Him. 

The fierce light of public notoriety now shone 
upon Him wherever He went. But in many respects 
He lived the same calm life which He had lived at 
Nazareth. There was nothing overstrained, nothing 
sensational in anything He did. His four biog- 
raphies have, of course, an Eastern coloring, but we 
clearly learn from them that He was not proud and 
domineering, but meek and lowly — willing to help all, 
heal all, save all. His whole life, indeed, was a life of 
earnest, useful, unselfish work, but at the same time 
it was not devoid of geniality and sociability, of pri- 
vate friendships and homespun virtues. He had His 
friends, both male and female, whom He loved and 
by whom He was loved in return. He went to mar- 
riage-feasts and dinner-parties, and had His quiet 

Lamps of the Temple — 20 



306 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



evenings with Lazarus and Martha and Mary at 
Bethany. 

But Jesus of Nazareth, by His teaching as well as 
by His life, did much to manifest God. He emphat- 
ically declared His spirituality. The idea was not 
altogether new, but in every religious system of the 
then world it was forgotten. And, having declared 
that God was a spirit, He drew from it the inevitable 
inference that all true worship must be spiritual, and 
thus revolutionized the religions of the world. All 
places and all times are alike holy. On Mount Geri- 
zim or Mount Moriah, in mosque or cathedral or 
meeting-house, by the fireside or in the field, on Sat- 
urday or on Sunday, there may be worship in spirit 
and in truth of the spiritual God. Every aspiration 
after goodness is worship. Thus in the words of Jesus 
as He sat thirsty and weary by Jacob's well, and con- 
versed with the Samaritan woman who had come 
there with her pitcher to draw water, we get a view 
of Divinity from which all the world might learn 
something ; and we see no national deity, no sec- 
tarian god, but the universal Spirit, the common 
Father of all mankind. The Gentile idea of God 
was grievously wrong. The Jewish idea was in 
some respects almost as far from the truth ; but the 
Jewish and the Gentile ideas were rlike corrected in 
the sublime virtues and blessed lessons of Jesus the 
Saviour. 

The work of Jesus, then, was not to manifest 
God in His essence, in His infinitude: for our nature 
was incapable of such a manifestation. And while 



THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD 307 



philosophy may properly occupy herself with such 
lofty themes, religion is content with a lower walk. 
The question then recurs, how did He manifest God? 
I answer, He made known the moral character of 
God. I am aware that when I thus speak I am 
translating the language of heaven into the language 
of earth. I am in some measure likening God to 
ourselves when I speak of His moral character, but 
it is not given to man otherwise to think of or 
otherwise to speak of the heavenly and divine. 
God in some way must be brought down to us, as 
we cannot possibly lift ourselves up to God. Now, 
it is certain that men had for long ages puzzled 
themselves in vain about the moral nature of the 
Deity, and hence the contradictory attributes 
ascribed to their idol gods. Sometimes they 
ascribed to these the purest benevolence, sometimes 
the most malignant cruelty ; sometimes they spoke 
of them as exemplars of justice and truth, some- 
times they described them as perpetrating deeds so 
foul that even modern vice would cry shame upon 
them. Now, it is plain that, though we cannot know 
God in all His infinitude, we may know whether He 
is kind or cruel — whether He is pure or impure — 
whether He is spiritual and transcends all sense, or 
is material, and may be shrined in a temple and 
sculptured in stone. To make this known to the 
world was the mission of Jesus. 

Jesus Christ, in His own person and character, 
was a manifestation of God. He was a visible 
image of Him who is invisible. Every man is in a 



308 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



sense made in the likeness of his heavenly Father, 
in so far as he is endowed with godlike faculties ; 
but that likeness is often marred by sin, and some- 
times in the face of a fellow-creature we see not the 
countenance of a god but the features of a devil. 
But Jesus of Nazareth was altogether divine. We 
must trace His life to see this. 

His life divides itself into two quite distinct por- 
tions — His private life, which extends over thirty 
years, and His public life, which probably did not 
last more than three years. 

Let us try and lift the veil which hangs over the 
thirty years when He was slowly being matured for 
His future work. We have several gospels of the 
childhood of Jesus, stuffed with silly legends as to 
how He resuscitated a dead bird and carried water 
in a sieve, and ever and anon astonished His play- 
mates by His miracles ; but we know that these gos- 
pels are spurious ; they carry their falsehood on 
their face. There is nothing divine in such stories 
as these. We can believe, however, that He was a 
marvellously precocious boy, and that notwithstand- 
ing His precocity He was subject to His parents. 
We have reason, moreover, to believe that He was 
brought up in the bosom of a family, with younger 
brothers and sisters ; for the legends of the Roman 
church on this subject are not only groundless, but 
opposed to the gospel narrative, and are designed 
to substitute false virginity and sour asceticism for 
home-bred piety. Here, then, is the first stage in 
the life of Jesus — a child among children. But are 



THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD 



309 



not the innocence and happiness of childhood em- 
blematical of the heavenly and divine ? 

He slowly grew from infancy to boyhood, from 
boyhood to manhood, just as we do. And as He 
grew in stature He increased in wisdom and in all 
goodness. All His fellow-villagers knew Him, and 
all loved Him. There is reason to believe that He 
worked at His father's trade of a carpenter, and by 
making the rude implements of husbandry helped 
to support the household. He must have lived just 
such a life as any mechanic of the present day lives, 
making allowance for the change of time. But He 
was humble, industrious, and content — content to 
do His daily work, to eat His humble fare, to remain 
in obscurity, notwithstanding that He must have 
been conscious of the great capabilities which were 
slumbering within Him. And was not Jesus of 
Nazareth as truly divine and as truly doing His 
Father's work when He thus lived a village workman 
as when He afterward blazed upon the world as a 
religious reformer ? And are not these thirty years 
full of meaning to those myriads, in all countries 
and in all times, who must live in obscurity and 
earn their daily bread by their daily toil ? This life 
at Nazareth, suffused with artisan religion, the 
religion of industry, honesty, truthfulness, devotion, 
had no trace of what is usually deemed heroical. 
No incident was worth recording. It was the ordi- 
nary life of a workinginan. No doubt, on the one 
side it was altogether divine, but on the other it 
was very human and very homely. Thus the second 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



stage in this great life was that of a village work- 
man. 

When He was thirty years of age, this village car- 
penter appeared before His countrymen as a prophet. 
He had heard the heavenly call within Him, and He 
had obeyed it. He summoned His compeers to 
repentance, declaring that the kingdom of God was 
at hand. He spoke to them of a higher than their 
ancestral religion, which, though once full of life, 
was now sapless and fruitless, and well-nigh dead. 



BELIEF THE CURE OF CARE. 

F. A. Noble, D.D. 

OELIEF is holding the whole being in such poise 
of acquiescence in providential ordering, that, 
hemmed in by whatever limitations, and plunged 
into whatever depths of sadness and pain and loss, 
the eyes still keep a steadfast look on the everlast- 
ing hills. It is to journey all day long under what- 
ever scorching suns, over whatever burning sands, 
through whatever dreary wildernesses, leaning on 
the staff of trust. It is to pitch tent, when the sun 
goes down and night thickens, under the shelter of 
trust. It is to be heated while hot and lie on God's 
anvil of sorrow and be hammered by the master- 
hand into whatever fashion it seemeth to Him good, 
and through it all abate no jot nor tittle of trust. 
It is to rise up out of the murkiness of this earth- 
atmosphere, and live in that faith-frame in which 
one easily knows more than the understanding can 



BELIEF THE CURE OF CARE 



compass, and feels more than philosophy can 
fathom, and catches sounds that the ear can never 
hear, and beholds visions that the eye can never see, 
and find difficulty no longer in realizing a world 
other than this which greets the outer senses, and 
a kingdom within and over this hard material king- 
dom now lying about us, has constant and keenest 
appreciation of celestial verities, and strikes hands 
with eternal fact, and walks in the light and toward 
the light that has broken through from the illumi- 
nated land, each day manna-fed, love-comforted, 
glory-beckoned, and inwardly assured that in a little 
while the door of welcome to the Father's house 
shall swing wide open, and the foot cross the thresh- 
old where all questionings come to pause, and all 
weariness finds alleviation in divine refreshment, 
and all great and pure longings are satisfied, and 
all pain is forgotten or turned into pleasure, and all 
sighings give way to songs, and every weight of 
anxiety is thrown off, and every pang of agony 
ceases, and all experience forevermore is of the rest 
that remaineth to, is of the crown that crowneth, 
is of the joy that rejoiceth, is of the fullness that 
filleth, the people of God. . . . How blessed 
it is that there is some real refuge of comfort for us 
in the midst of our distresses ; some real victory for 
us over these troubles that annoy, and hinder, and 
grieve. There are many beautiful things in this 
world ; many very sweet joys in this life ; and the 
last of all men would I be to belittle whatever there 
is abroad which is gladsome. But after all, this of 



312 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



ours is a troubled realm. It is a tear-land. Before us 
are disappointments, behind us are sorrowful memo- 
ries, and anguishes and agonies keep us company 
as we journey along on our pilgrim way. More 
than these, however, are the consolations and 
encouragements and recompenses. And should all 
else fail us, there is the great assurance, bright and 
shining as the sun, and more precious than a thou- 
sand worlds, " In my Father's house are many man- 
sions ; if it were not so, I would have told you. I 
go to prepare a place for you." 



HE whole church, all elect souls, each in its turn, 



1 is called to this necessary work. Once it was 
the turn of others, and now it is our turn. Once it 
was the apostles' turn. It was St. Paul's turn once. 
And after him the excellent of the earth, the white- 
robed army of martyrs, and the cheerful company 
of confessors, each in his turn, each in his day, 
likewise played the man. And so down to our 
time, when faith has well-nigh failed, first one and 
then another has been called out to exhibit before 
the great King It is as though all of us were allowed 
to stand around His throne at once, and He called 
on first this man and then that, to take up the chant 
by himself, each in his turn having to repeat the 
melody which his brethren have before gone through. 



WARFARE THE CONDITION OF 
VICTORY. 



Cardinal Newman. 




LIVING WELL 



313 



Or as if we held a solemn dance to His honor in the 
courts of heaven, and each had by himself to per- 
form some one and the same solemn and graceful 
movement at a signal given. Or as if it were some 
trial of strength, or of agility, and, while the ring of 
bystanders beheld and applauded, we in succession, 
one by one, were actors in the pageant. Such is our 
state : angels are looking on, Christ has gone before, 
Christ has given us an example that we may follow 
His steps. Now it is our turn, and all ministering 
spirits keep silence and look on. Oh, let not your 
foot slip, or your eye be false, or your ear dull, or 
your attention flagging ! Be not dispirited ; be not 
afraid ; keep a good heart ; be bold ; draw not back ; 
you will be carried through. 



HAT means that we shall live for God ; for there 



is no wise life apart from Him. All who ignore 
God in life are denominated as fools by the Book. 
And it is wonderful how many fools are introduced 
to us by the Bible. Men fools and women fools. 
Just see ! There is the builder who built his house 
upon the sand — a man fool. There is the rich 
farmer who laid up riches in barns instead of in his 
soul — another man fool. There are five sleeping 
watchers with untrimmed lamps, a whole troop of 
fools — women. The world is filled with men and 
women alike lacking wisdom. 



LIVING WELL. 



Dr. Gregg. 




314 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



There are different types of life, and wisdom in 
living consists in choosing the highest type and liv- 
ing it. There is the Abraham type, and there is 
the Lot type. According to spiritual arithmetic 
the values of these lives contrast, but do not com- 
pare. Lot's life shows us how contracted a man's 
religious life may be, and yet that man be still a 
child of God. Abraham's life shows us how grand 
the religious life of a man may be and ought to be. 
It shows us God's ideal for His children. Abraham 
was cultured under the tuition of God in spiritual 
arithmetic and he regulated his life by this arithme- 
tic. Spiritual arithmetic taught him each day to 
add to his graces, and to subtract from his sinful 
habits, and to multiply his endeavors, and to divide 
his duties, and to proportionate his thanksgiving to 
his mercies. 

Let us remember that our life is before us, as 
the keyboard of the organ is before the musician, 
The musician knows the possibilities of the key- 
board. Through it he can translate into real life 
the whole world of music. Through it he can make 
the master genius of the past live again. Through 
it he can resurrect the grand musical thoughts of 
the old masters and send them vibrating anew in the 
air and thrilling anew through human souls. 

Fronting the year 1890, let us remember that life 
is before us as the broad canvas is before the land- 
scape painter. The painter knows the possibilities 
of the canvas. He knows that there are scenes and 
scenes in nature not yet translated into the colors of 



REVELATION OF GOD TO MAN 3 1 5 

his art. There was a time, I believe, when landscape 
painters were mourning the poverty of their sub- 
jects. They felt that all of the grand outlooks had 
been committed to the canvas, and that the future 
would consist only in copying. Their anxiety was 
useless. Soon there was discovered an unknown 
marvel of nature, an unexplored solitude of grandeur. 
God opened the Yosemite, full of rich and new 
subjects for brush and pencil. Men talk of the 
limitations of life. To the Christian there are no 
limitations of life. The possibilities of human life 
are as inexhaustible and as unlimited as the endow- 
ment and the duration of the immortal soul. This 
is what we wish to write upon our hearts as we leave 
the old year and step across the threshold of the new 
year. Our years are numbered, but the influences 
possible to our years are unnumbered and never- 
dying. We can by the help of divine grace fill the 
coming year with deeds as eternal as the eternal life 
of God To do this is to apply our hearts unto 
wisdom. 



THE REVELATION OF GOD TO MAN. 

F. W. Robertson. 

DEVELATION is made by a spirit to a spirit; 
*^ " God hath revealed them unto us by His 
Spirit"; "The spirit searcheth all things, yea, the 
deep things of God." The spirit of God lies touch- 
ing, as it were, the soul of man, — ever around and 
near. On the outside of earth man stands with 



3i6 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



the boundless heaven above him ; nothing between 
him and space, — space around him and above him, 
the confines of the sky touching him. So is the 
spirit of man to the spirit of the Ever Near. They 
mingle : in every man this is true. All men are not 
spiritual men, but all have spiritual sensibilities 
which might awaken. All that is wanted is to be- 
come conscious of the nearness of God. God has 
placed men here to feel after Him if haply they 
might find Him, albeit He be not far from any one 
of them. Our souls float in the immeasurable 
ocean of spirit. God lies around us ; at any mo- 
ment we might be conscious of the contact. And 
if obedience were entire and love were perfect, then 
would the Revelation of the spirit to the soul of 
man be perfect too. There would be trust expell- 
ing care, and enabling a man to repose ; there 
would be a love which could cast out fear ; there 
would be a sympathy with the mighty All of God. 
Selfishness would pass ; isolation would be felt no 
longer ; the tide of the universal and eternal Life 
would come with mighty pulsations throbbing 
through the soul. To such a man it would not 
matter were he was, nor what ; to live or die would 
be alike. No matter to such a man what he saw or 
what he heard ; for every sight would be resplendent 
with beauty, and every sound would echo harmony. 
The human would become Divine ; life, even the 
meanest, noble. In the hue of every violet there 
would be a glimpse of Divine affection, and a dream 
of heaven. The forest would blaze with Deity, as 



THE BIBLE EXHAUSTLESS 



317 



it did to the eye of Moses. The creations of genius 
would breathe less of earth and more of heaven. 
Human love would burn with a clearer and intenser 
flame, rising from the altar of self-sacrifice. These 
are " the things which God hath prepared for them 
that love Him." 



HE Bible can never be exhausted. The most 



1 learned commentators and eloquent preachers 
have but crossed the threshold of the magnificent 
temple. As in Nature, so in Revelation : the materials 
of every steam-engine, telegraph, microscope, and 
other mechanical and scientific contrivances, have 
been lying for countless ages under the dust of the 
earth undisturbed, until a comparatively recent 
date. The lens by which is now revealed the. 
glory of invisible worlds might have been appropri- 
ated to the same purpose in the days of Adam. 
The metal which our contemporaries have trans- 
formed into gigantic locomotives is not superior to 
that which was used in the oldest antiquity ; — and 
the water which flowed in Eden might have been 
converted into steam as powerful as ever propelled 
a modern engine. But these wonders were unknown. 
Their development was the triumph of a later 
genius. And what yet may be fashioned out of the 
materials of nature, no sagacity can prognosticate. 
Our present conquests form the starting-points of 



THE BIBLE EXHAUSTLESS. 



Joseph Parker, D.D. 




3i8 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



more dazzling victories. So, in reference to Revela- 
tion : generations yet unborn will group around its 
pages, and gather from them more sublime and 
radiant truths than those which have flashed on our 
intellect and cheered our hearts, — from the harps of 
the Hebrew bards they will hear a more elevating 
melody than ever charmed our spirits, — and in the 
living words of the Divine Man perceive a depth, a 
grandeur, and a significance of which no conception 
can be formed. The ancient prophets have yet more 
to relate. Isaiah will reveal glories surpassing imagi- 
nation, and Ezekiel unfold splendors which would 
overpower our visual organs. Intellectual percep- 
tion will be quickened so as to penetrate the clouds 
which intercept man's vision of the truth. No NEW 
Revelation, however, will be granted ; but from the 
present Bible will stream "a light above the bright- 
ness of the sun." Never need we fear an exhaustion 
of truth. It is sempiternal as God, and perennial as 
the springs of immortality. 



DEATH, A SUBLIME AND UNIVERSAL 
MORALIST. 

Dr. Sparks. 

]\JO object is so insignificant, no event so trivial, as 
*■ not to carry with it a moral and religious in- 
fluence. The trees that spring out of the earth are 
moralists. They are emblems of the life of man. 
They grow up ; they put on the garments of fresh- 



DEATH, A SUBLIME MORALIST 



319 



ness and beauty. Yet these continue but for a time ; 
decay seizes upon the root and the trunk, and they 
gradually go back to their original elements. The 
blossoms that open to the rising sun, but are closed 
at night never to open again, are moralists. The 
seasons are moralists, teaching the lessons of wis- 
dom, manifesting the wonders of the Creator, and 
calling on man to reflect on his condition and des- 
tiny. History is a perpetual moralist disclosing the 
annals of past ages, showing the impotency of pride 
and greatness, the weakness of human power, the 
folly of human wisdom. The daily occurrences in 
society are moralists. The success or failure of en- 
terprise, the prosperity of the bad, the adversity of 
the good, the disappointed hopes of the sanguine 
and active, the sufferings of the virtuous, the ca- 
prices of fortune in every condition of life ; all these 
are fraught with moral instructions, and, if properly 
applied, will fix the power of religion in the heart. 

But there is a greater moralist still ; and that is, 
DEATH. Here is a teacher, who speaks in a voice 
which none can mistake ; who comes with a power 
which none can resist. Since we last assembled in 
this place as the humble and united worshipers of 
God, this stern messenger, this mysterious agent of 
Omnipotence, has come among our numbers, and 
laid his withering hand on one, whom we have been 
taught to honor and respect, whose fame was a na- 
tion's boast, whose genius was a brilliant spark from 
the ethereal fire, whose attainments were equalled 
only by the grasp of his intellect, the profoundness 



320 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



of his judgment, the exuberance of his fancy, the 
magic of his eloquence. 

It is not my present purpose to ask your atten- 
tion to any picture drawn in the studied phrase of 
eulogy. I aim not to describe the commanding 
powers and the eminent qualities, which conducted 
the deceased to the superiority he held, and which 
were at once the admiration and the pride of his 
countrymen. I shall not attempt to analyze his 
capacious mind, nor to set forth the richness and 
variety of its treasures. The trophies of his genius 
are a sufficient testimony of these, and constitute a 
monument to his memory, which will stand firm and 
conspicuous amidst the faded recollections of future 
ages. The present is not the time to recount the 
sources or the memorials of his greatness. He is 
gone. The noblest of Heaven's gifts could not 
shield even him from the arrows of the destroyer. 
And this behest of the Most High is a warning sum- 
mons to us all. When Death comes into our doors, 
we ought to feel that he is near. When his irrevers- 
ible sentence falls on the great and the renowned, 
when he severs the strongest bonds which can bind 
mortals to earth, we ought to feel that our hold on 
life is slight, that the thread of existence is slender, 
that we walk amidst perils, where the next wave in 
the agitated sea of life may baffle all our struggles, 
and carry us back into the dark bosom of the deep. 

When we look at the monuments of human great- 
ness, and the powers of human intellect, all that 
genius has invented, or skill executed, or wisdom 



DEATH, A SUBLIME MORALIST 32 1 



matured, or industry achieved, or labor accom- 
plished ; when we trace these through the successive 
gradations of human advancement, what are they ? 
On these are founded the pride, glory, dignity of 
man. And what are they? Compared with the 
most insignificant work of God, they are nothing, 
less than nothing. The mightiest works of man are 
daily and hourly becoming extinct. The boasted 
theories of religion, morals, government, which took 
the wisdom, the ingenuity of ages to invent, have 
been proved to be shadowy theories only. Genius 
has wasted itself in vain ; the visions it has raised 
have vanished at the touch of truth. Nothing is left 
but the melancholy certainty, that all things human 
are imperfect, and must fail and decay. And man 
himself, whose works are so fragile, where is he? 
The history of his works is the history of himself. 
He existed ; he is gone. 

The nature of human life cannot be more forcibly 
described than in the beautiful language of eastern 
poetry, which immediately precedes the text : 
" Man, that is born of woman, is of few days, and 
full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and 
is cut down; he fleeth as a shadow, and continueth 
not. There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, 
that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch 
thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof 
wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in 
the ground ; yet, through the scent of water, it will 
bud and bring forth boughs like a plant. But man 
wasteth away ; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and 

Lamps of the Temple — 21 



322 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



where is he?" Such are the striking emblems of 
human life ; such is the end of all that is mortal in 
man. And what a question is here for us to reflect 
upon ! " Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he ? " 

Yes, when we see the flower of life fade on its 
stalk, and all its comeliness depart, and all its fresh- 
ness wither; when we see the bright eye grow dim, 
and the rose on the cheek lose its hue ; when we 
hear the voice faltering its last accents, and see the 
energies of nature paralyzed ; when we perceive the 
beams of intelligence grow fainter and fainter on 
the countenance, and the last gleam of life extin- 
guished ; when we deposit all that is mortal of a fel- 
low-being in the dark, cold chamber of the grave, 
and drop a pitying tear at a spectacle so humiliating, 
so mournful ; then let us put the solemn question 
to our souls, Where is he? His body is concealed 
in the earth ; but where is the spirit ? Where is the 
intellect that could look through the works of God, 
and catch inspiration from the Divinity which 
animates and pervades the whole ? Where are the 
powers that could command, the attractions that 
could charm ? where the boast of humanity, wisdom, 
learning, wit, eloquence, the pride of skill, the mys- 
tery of art, the creations of fancy, the brilliancy of 
thought ? where the virtues that could win, and the 
gentleness that could soothe ? where the mildness of 
temper, the generous affections, the benevolent feel- 
ings, all that is great and good, all that is noble, and 
lovely, and pure, in the human character, — where 
are they? They are gone. We can seen nothing; 



DEATH, A SUBLIME MORALIST 323 



the eye of faith only can dimly penetrate the region 
to which they have fled. Lift the eye of faith ; fol- 
low the light of the Gospel ; and let your delighted 
vision be lost in the glories of the immortal world. 
Behold, there, the spirits of the righteous dead ris- 
ing up into newness of life, gathering brightness 
and strength, unencumbered by the weight of mor- 
tal clay and mortal sorrows, enjoying a happy exist- 
ence, and performing the holy service of their 
Maker. 

Let our reflections on death have a weighty and 
immediate influence on our minds and characters. 
We cannot be too soon nor too entirely prepared 
to render the account which we must all render to 
our Maker and Judge. All things earthly must 
fail us ; the riches, power, possessions and gifts of 
the world will vanish from our sight ; friends and 
relatives will be left behind ; our present support 
will be taken away ; our strength will become weak- 
ness ; and the earth itself, and all its pomps, and 
honors, and attractions will disappear. Why have 
we been spared even till this time? We know not 
why, nor yet can we say that a moment is our own. 
The summons for our departure may now be re- 
corded in the book of Heaven. The angel may 
now be on his way to execute his solemn commis- 
sion. Death may already have marked us for his 
victims. But, whether sooner or later, the event will 
be equally awful, and demand the same preparation. 

One, only, will then be our rock and our safety. 
The kind Parent, who has upheld us all our days, 



324 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



will remain our unfailing support. With Him is no 
change; He is unmoved from age to age; His 
mercy, as well as His being, endures forever ; and, 
if we rely on Him, and live in obedience to His 
laws, all tears shall be wiped from our eyes, and all 
sorrow banished from our hearts. If we are rebels 
to His cause, slaves to vice, and followers of evil, 
we must expect the displeasure of a holy God, the 
just punishment of our folly and wickedness; for 
a righteous retribution will be awarded to the evil 
as well as to the good. 

Let it be the highest, the holiest, the unceasing 
concern of each one of us, to live the life, that we 
may be prepared to die the death of the righteous ; 
that, when they who come after us shall ask, Where 
is he ? unnumbered voices shall be raised to testify, 
that, although his mortal remains are mouldering in 
the cold earth, his memory is embalmed in the 
cherished recollections of many a friend who knew 
and loved him ; and all shall say, with tokens of joy 
and confident belief, If God be just, and piety be 
rewarded, his pure spirit is now at rest in the regions 
of the blessed. 



THE TRUE ECONOMY OF LIFE. 

Jenkyn Lloyd Jones. 

TF you want to live long and reach life's maximum 
* in any direction }^ou must rise above the fear of 
other people's frowns or the thirst for other people's 
smiles. I mean no selfish isolation. I believe life 



THE TRUE ECONOMY OF LIFE 325 

is wasted by too much isolation. The welfare of 
my brother is my welfare, and your chief business 
and mine is to have a large hand in the business of 
some other people. It is to make life more possible 
for others, and pleasures and duties more available 
to many. I mean the selfish dread of other peo- 
ple's opinions, the unholy desires of penetrating 
into other people's affairs. The desire to be respect- 
able rather than to be useful, and the discontent 
because other people do not do as we would like to 
have them do. I will not dwell much upon this. 
I hope that it is not necessary in this presence ; but, 
dear friends, let us be very honest with ourselves, 
this is a matter for closet preaching. That life is 
wasted that shuns the thought it craves for, lest in 
seeking it the brand of heretic be placed upon it or 
the suspicions and the jeers of the orthodox major- 
ity follow it. " Your city of Chicago must be very 
bad," said a blunt countryman to me some years 
ago. " What makes you think so ? " " Because," 
he replied, with a twinkle in his eye, "our minister 
preaches about your sins every Sunday." It is 
more easy to preach of the sins of those who are 
two hundred miles away than it is to consider our 
own shortcomings, but it is not nearly so profitable. 
If you would live at your maximum, live on frank 
lines, be honest with your soul, single-minded, seek 
the approbation of God, not of man, and God 
speaks to you in the privacy of your own soul, in 
the strugglings of your own conscience, the hunger 
of you own heart. 



326 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



While walking the streets of Palatka, in Flor- 
ida, the other day, I overheard a voice at prayer 
coming from a crude little chapel ; I stepped inside. 
It was a Wednesday afternoon prayer-meeting in a 
colored church, and a mother in Israel was pouring 
forth her soul in earnest though incoherent aspira- 
tions. Many, perhaps most, of the words were a 
poor, pathetic reaching after thoughts which would 
not come, but every once in a while a nugget of 
pure gold would drop from her lips such as an ora- 
tor might covet and would make the heart of a poet 
glad. Among such rare sentences was this : 
" Mars'r, teach us to keep our own do'-steps clean, 
and then from very shame ou' neighbors will clean 
up der's." This touched the core of the spiritual 
life. And I joined silently in the " Amens " which 
audibly filled the room. I did not wonder that that 
simple washerwoman — for her vocation came out in 
the prayer — was lusty of body and had a face that 
looked as though it could be " auntie " to a whole 
colony. If we want to economize life let us try to 
keep our own door-steps clean, and that kind of life 
will spread like a divine contagion ; you will carry 
in your face and eyes an epidemic of holiness. 
"Thoughts are things," and a mean thought will 
rankle and fester in the spirit, draining and exhaust- 
ing it like the bite of a serpent in the flesh. Beware 
of the thorns that wound the heart, the jealousies 
of society, and the debilitating dread of public opin- 
ion. If you would live out the maximum of your 
life, be afraid of nobody but God ; stand in the 



THE TRUE ECONOMY OF LIFE 327 



divine sincerity that comes to souls who seek to 
correct their own mistakes, rather than to magnify 
or even advertise the mistakes of others. " Neither 
do I condemn thee ; go, sin no more," " Father, 
forgive them, for they know not what they do," 
were the words of Him who knew so well the 
secrets of the divine economy. In the third place, 
let me beg of you to remember that life must be 
nourished if it is to be saved. To feed the body is 
a comparatively easy task, and I am inclined to be- 
lieve that the world is better fed and better 
clothed on the physical side than many of our social 
economists at the present time would have us be- 
lieve. I am sure at least that in this respect things 
are growing hopefully better. Bat think of the 
starving minds and the famishing hearts of the men 
who sit down to sumptuous tables to-day. Men 
and women will go through many courses of 
stomach viands who have not given their minds a 
square meal for six months — whose hearts are well- 
nigh paralyzed from malnutrition. Here comes 
the pathos of our hurried lives, the real tragedies of 
the city. 

How many men and women there are who exhaust 
all the vitality of spirit as well as body in what they 
call the business of the day, then allow themselves 
to be dragged listlessly home through the murky 
streets to some suburban dreariness, spiritually con- 
sidered, which they call home, out of and around 
which none of the delicate rootlets of social sym- 
pathy, neighborly ties, human interests shoot. Their 



328 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



lives are not beautifully interlocked with other souls 
in church, in club, in neighborhood, or social rela- 
tionship. They go home to mope a little, to eat a 
little, to sleep as much as they may, that again they 
may start in the morning refreshed to continue 
life in " business." I know how hard it is to avoid this, 
but I do not believe that these difficulties are insur- 
mountable if only the needs of the soul for food 
were recognized as frankly and as sacredly as are the 
needs of the body recognized. Here is a problem 
which the eight-hour movement touches, but does 
not begin to fathom. Ten hours a day still leaves 
margin enough to feed the soul and keep it alive, if 
the needs of the soul are made a matter of system- 
atic search, of patient — at first laborious and at last 
joyous and triumphant — searching. I do not ignore 
the value of open air and natural beauty, but I 
would rather live in an alley with some privileges than 
in a palace without them. I can do without a land- 
scape better than I can without congenial companion- 
ship. The shelter of a neighborly hearth is worth 
more than the shelter of an oak, and to feel your- 
self a factor in a living, loving church or human 
circle of any kind has in it more vital power, 
more life-giving resources, it will increase your 
appetite, sweeten your sleep, prolong your life, 
multiply your usefulness more than horses and 
carriages, servants and lawn, apart from such possi- 
bilities. 

These last mentioned economies of life cannot 
be bought with money, and cannot be changed 



THE TRUE ECONOMY OF LIFE 



329 



every year. They are to be acquired but once or 
twice in a life-time. These are weighty considera- 
tions to you house-hunters who think of moving 
on the 1st of May. Moving-day in this city is the 
most pathetic day of all the year. Oh, it is tragic 
to think of the rude handling of the " household 
gods " by the irreverent hands of the expressman ; 
how books -are torn and pictures soiled ; touches of 
beauty broken so they can never be transplanted. 
How the nerves of delicate women and the morals 
of strong men are shattered by the taking down of 
stoves and the putting up of stove-pipes ! But all 
this is but a superficial agony, a trifling inconven- 
ience compared with the devastation of spirit that 
comes from the breaking up of old associations ; the 
rude violence done to the heart and mind ; chil- 
dren abruptly taken out of day-school, the Sunday 
class, and the home church ; the kind neighbor over 
whom you watched in sickness ; the pastor whose 
voice tried to lift your heart above the agonies of 
the open coffin. Are all these losses to go for little 
when compared with an economy of five or six dol- 
lars a month in rent or a little more space indoors 
and a little more prospect out of doors? These 
latter are important, very important ; get them 
when you can ; but, friends, beware of the May-day 
epidemic. Distrust the restlessness that is willing 
to move. The real estate man can always show 
you a desirable house, but he cannot rent you a 
home, and life's divinest economy clusters around 
that word. 



33Q 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



HOW TO GET MEN TO CHURCH. 

H. F. Horton, M.A. 

TT seems to me that we shall do it directly we turn 
our thoughts to the people as they are ; not the 
people as they were in the thirteenth century, when 
the cathedral was built, but the people as they are 
in this end of the nineteenth century, and when, at 
the same time, we turn our thoughts less upon our 
denomination, less even upon all the methods of 
our denomination, and more upon the abiding and 
living presence of God Himself and all the things 
which gather round the sacred name, and make it the 
one constant purpose of our work to bring men of 
this day and the God who is unchangeable into 
direct immediate contact, as it were, irrespective 
of all our methods and all our churches. Looking 
at the men of to-day I believe most of us are agreed 
that a great proportion of them are not enamored 
of our public worship. 

We have just been told that they go in large 
numbers to Ritualistic churches ; I do not think 
they go in large numbers to non-Ritualistic churches; 
I do not think they go in large numbers to any 
churches. But we should grasp the thought that 
men may not wish to go to church and yet may 
wish to come to God. We should look upon those 
men and women not as necessarily unchristianized 
because they do not believe in our methods of wor- 
ship or of work ; we should rise as it were to a point 
iroiL which our own methods appear insignificant, 



HOW TO GET MEN TO CHURCH 



331 



and from which we can understand the real religious 
instincts of people who do not listen to sermons 
and cannot even be induced to enter a religious 
building. 

I remember an old fisherman on the eastern 
coast. In speaking about religious worship and 
faith in God, he said, in words I shall always remem- 
ber : "You see, sir, I am no four-walls Christian," 
which meant that he never went to church. I do 
not wonder, for I went to church ; it was a vast 
building crowded with people, and I heard the 
clergyman, an excellant man, talk the most unutter- 
able rubbish I ever listened to ; and this old fisher- 
man was literally above it, though he could not 
read and write. Of course he ought to have gone 
to the Primitive Methodist Chapel. I went there, 
too, and I heard a very eloquent but very ignorant 
layman, who almost thundered the roof off, without 
giving us a single idea or truth on which the spirit 
of man could feed ; and I believe that this old fisher- 
man literally felt that on the sea and in his boat he 
was, as it were, nearer to God than in the vacant 
assembly of that crowded church, or in the perpet- 
ual vociferation of that little Primitive Methodist 
Chapel. You may remember Robert Browning's 
inimitable poem on " Christmas Eve," in which he 
describes leaving the little chapel on the edge of 
the moor and going on to the moor itself, and there 
meeting with God. You will say that that was not 
a typical church ; but I am not quite sure whether 
relatively to the men of to-day it is not more typical 



332 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



than we think ; whether the preaching and teaching 
in the pulpits is not removed from the thought of 
the day almost as much as that poor muddle-headed 
man was removed from the thought of Robert 
Browning. At any rate, you will remember how, 
when he got out under the heavens, and began to 
see the great rainbow arch of the moon and the 
drifting clouds, he offered up to God a sacrifice of 
love, and he felt that God was near. 

And because my heart I proffered, 
With true love trembling at the brim, 
He suffers me to follow Him 
For ever, my own way, — dispensed 
From seeking to be influenced 
By all the less immediate ways 
That earth, in worships manifold, 
Adopts to reach, by prayer and praise, 
The garment's hem, which, lo, I hold ! 

We want to understand that there are multitudes 
of our fellow men and women who have a closer 
hold of the garments of God than many people 
crowding in these fashionable churches. We want 
to learn the simple method of going to them in 
their homes and telling them frankly : " I have not 
come to bring you to the chapel, or to ask you to 
go to church with me ; but I have come to tell you 
that God loves you, and I love you because God 
loves you, and if you never come to church I shall 
come and speak with you and sit by your side and 
hold conversation with you as one of my brothers 
in God through Jesus Christ." 



IN HONOR OF THE HEROIC DEAD 



333 



IN HONOR OF THE HEROIC DEAD. 

David Swing. 

pEMEMBRANCE of past ills brings a pleasure 
when those ills have been followed by success 
and happiness. A good present forgives a painful 
past. Our public men who have reached good posi- 
tions in society and the comforts of home are always 
willing to talk about the days when the home was a 
log-cabin and when $i was a large quantity of money. 
Looking back from the bright present, all the early 
evidences of poverty and hardship become touched 
with a light of beauty. The memory recalls with 
pleasure the days when it was common for the 
youths of 13 or 14 to walk two or three miles to 
school or church, and in the summer months to car- 
ry the costly shoes in hand until the goal was almost 
reached, the bare foot being good enough for the 
lonely miles of woods or field. When the present 
has a plentiful supply of money it loves to look back 
to a time when $10 a month and found were the 
wages for the man who could swing an ax or a hoe 
ten hours a day. Now, when one puts a neat, cheap 
stamp on a letter, he perhaps remembers with joy 
the time when the same letter would have required 
as postage 25 cents. 

Each period of life, and each age has its own form 
of reminiscence. The minds of Paul and his friends 
looked back, and although in the midst of perils 
they contemplated with happiness the events which 
had led them out of darkness and cruelty into the 



334 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



new light and general kindness. Some of his com- 
panions had been wicked citizens, but now they had 
been " washed, sanctified, and redeemed." Thus 
each day has its own yesterday, and when this yes- 
terday becomes far away its image often rises up in 
memory and fills the present with itself again. 

This day and to-morrow in our country are sacred 
to the memory of those who fell in the last war. 
The last of May has been set apart for this affec- 
tionate recall of those known and unknown who fell 
in battle, that the Nation might live and that we 
who are now here might possess a well-founded and 
noble country. The churches of this land should 
honor all these soldier-tombs, because in dying to 
sustain a great Nation those soldiers founded at the 
same time a powerful and peaceful religion. Their 
swords and labors made a continent free and intel- 
ligent and energetic, and thus created the most 
valuable adjuncts of religion — a perfect arena for 
the church. 

Age has its compensations. Youth of to-day 
says I am young, my face has no wrinkles, my hair 
no gray ; I am buoyant and life is all before me ; 
but mature life replies : This is all true, but the 
youth of to-day cannot recall the thrilling scenes 
of 1861 to 1864; our youth did not see the Nation 
rise up in power ; did not see the volunteers swarm- 
ing toward the field of strife ; did not see each 
village a camp ; did not hear the perpetual drum- 
beat ; the youth of to-day did not see cavalry, 
infantry, and artillery all filing along toward the 



IN HONOR OF THE HEROIC DEAD 335 



rebellious South. Thus the older ones in this 
country find in the memory of those eventful years 
a full compensation for their gray hair and for the 
marks in cheek or forehead. 

It was April 13, Saturday, 1 861, when the war of 
secession opened its tragedy. Then at a little past 
12 in the morning the Confederate cannon opened 
fire upon the government fort, Sumter. Up to 
that hour there were black clouds, indeed, upon the 
horizon, but none knew whether there would be a 
storm nor if there were one, how violent it would 
become. Two government steamers, the Pawnee 
and the Harriet Lane, were lying off Charleston 
harbor in storm and darkness hoping to reprovision 
the invested fort. About midnight Saturday morn- 
ing the deep roar of cannon shook the sea, and fiery 
shells began to make their curves in their work of 
destruction. An old Virginian named Edmund 
Rufrin begged permission to fire the first cannon 
against the fort of the Union. It was granted him. 
He was 75 years old, but that array of years had 
failed to convey to him any broad ideas in politics 
or humanity ; but he had the virtue of sensibility, 
for he committed suicide when in a few years he saw 
Grant investing Richmond and Sherman tramping 
over the Carolinas. Three thousand shells fell into 
and upon Fort Sumter, and the Union garrison 
surrendered Sunday, April 14. Sunday thus opened 
the great war. 

Thus enters the Church into this history ; because 
the many and powerful denominations of the North 



33^ 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



gathered up each Sunday a large multitude of the 
most influential people, and into nearly all these 
assemblages at the evening service of that April day 
came the tidings that war had begun and Fort Sum- 
ter had fallen. It was a solemn but a powerful hour. 
Patriotic hymns were sung ; the prayers were all ap- 
peals to God for aid in establishing the right. In 
that crisis the churches became most valuable, be- 
cause they were the meeting-places of the people — 
sources of light and inspiration. The pulpit became 
a rostrum, and each old preacher who had repeated 
his scriptural lessons quietly as years had passed, 
suddenly became young and eloquent. 

The next day brought Mr. Lincoln's call for seven- 
ty-five thousand troops, and such was the response 
that nearly any one of the large Northern States 
could have filled up the requisition. Then did all 
this North land repeat the picture drawn by Byron : 

Ah, then and there was hurrying to and fro, 
And gathering tears and tremblings of distress. 

******* 
There was mounting in hot haste : the steed, 

The mustering squadron, and the clattering car 
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, 

And swiftly forming in the ranks of war, 

even more swiftly than could be dreamed of by a 
poet who was to die in 1824. The call for troops 
was issued April 15: on the next Wednesday the 
Sixth Massachusetts marched through New York 
City on its way to Washington, and on Friday the 
New York Seventh moved out toward the Capital. 



IN HONOR OF THE HEROIC DEAD 337 



Through New York City alone there poured along 
in April and May, from York State and New Eng- 
land fifty-six thousand troops. Our young genera- 
tion may perhaps realize the greatness of the war 
and the depth of public feeling when they note 
that in three months New York City sent forward 
forty thousand soldiers and one hundred and fifty 
millions of dollars for the defense of the Nation. 

Democrat and Republican became one word in 
import. The Democratic Mayor of New York was 
instantly transformed into a National patriot : the 
Governor of this State foresaw the fury of the storm, 
and issued a call for the legislature to assemble, 
and issued it some hours before Sumter had fallen. 
This city was then in the morning of its new life, 
having a population of only a fraction over a hun- 
dred thousand, but its heart beat in harmony with 
all the National music. By the close of 1861 this 
State had sixty thousand soldiers out in the field. 
But all these details, coming up from the many 
States, may be summed up in the one fact that in 
four years a million and a half of soldiers marched 
forward to take part in the settlement of principles 
by the ordeal of battle. 

From such figures it may be inferred what is 
meant by Decoration Day. That phrase stands for 
a multitude of graves. Could each soldier that fell 
have had a green hillock and a simple tombstone 
for his honored name, it would then be seen at a 
glance what an awful price was paid for the Union 
we now enjoy. The first man to fall and die was 

Lamps of the Temple — 22 



338 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



Private Arthur Ladd, whose blood was poured out 
in Baltimore while the Sixth Massachusetts was 
marching through that hostile city. His name 
passed at once into the rich "decoration day" of 
poetry, and he was immortalized. 

Straight to his heart the bullet crushed, 
Down from his breast the red blood gushed, 
And o'er his face a glory rushed. 

A sudden spasm shook his frame, 
And in his ears there went and came 
A sound as of devouring flame, 

****** 
Thus like a king, erect in pride, 
Raising clean hands to heaven he cried, 
"All hail the stars and stripes! " and died. 

This was the first death in the great tragedy; 
for in the bombarding of Fort Sumter not a single 
inmate was killed. After the fall of Arthur Ladd 
many followed in time painfully quick, and now 
this Memorial Day is made sacred by three hundred 
thousand graves of Union soldiers. Such an anni- 
versary proclaims its own greatness. It asks flowers 
and tears for the five hundred who fell at Fort 
Donaldson ; for the twenty-five hundred white faces 
on the battle-field of Shiloh ; for the three or four 
thousand at Chickamauga ; for the two thousand 
at Stone River ; for the thousands at Gettysburg, 
Atlanta, and in the " Wilderness." Many were the 
fields of carnage, and almost countless the dead that 
now ask for remembrance. The dead ones were not 
only soldiers of the Nation, but they were neigh- 



IN HONOR OF THE HEROIC DEAD 339 



bors, relatives, members of the fireside circle, held 
to life by ties of love and friendship, which ties 
unite with patriotism in asking that their life and 
death be held in perpetual remembrance. Could 
any one mind gather up and retain all the sorrow 
and pathos of those four years it would break of 
grief, unless the present grandeur of the Nation 
should be ever present also in the heart as a 
blessed compensation. James Russell Lowell, when 
thinking of the results of those graves, said those 
who lie in those silent beds are the living ones, and 
that we who took no part in the war are the real 
dead. In his Commemoration Ode comes these 
words : 

I with uncovered head 

Salute the sacred dead, 
Who went and who returned not — say not so! 
' Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay, 
But the high faith that failed not by the way ; 
Virtue treads paths that end not with the grave, 
No bar of endless night exiles the brave; 

And to the saner mind 
We rather seem the dead that stayed behind. 

There is a philosophy of human life that escapes us 
by being too high for our spirits and our prac- 
tice. To-morrow, when flowers shall be placed upon 
these myriads of hillocks, this philosophy will 
whisper its great doctrine to every heart which 
carries spring blossoms : It is better to live well 
than to live long. Life is not quantity ; it is qual- 
ity. An Ohio colonel, a young man of perhaps twen- 
ty-six years, said to his young wife : "If, now, when I 



34Q 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



rejoin my command and enter this coming battle, 
I should fall, do not wear mourning, but be up- 
lifted by the cause, and plant some rosebush by 
my grave as though its memory were that of a life 
well lived." Within a few days he fell dead in the 
battle of Stone River, his life short but grand. The 
ranks and files were full of this form of manhood. 
These dead soldiers have been away from our world 
twenty-five years nearly, but their life ending in 
youth outweighs many millions of lives over which 
threescore and ten summers have passed. 

These patriotic days should, instead of fading 
from year to year, grow in interest as they come, be- 
cause they witness each May a greater Nation, and 
because they can be celebrated in more and more of 
charity toward all and malice toward none. While 
these soldiers were dying none could read in the 
future such blessed results as we behold at last. 
The Union troops knew they were right, and then 
they marched forward ; but the troops of Greece 
once knew as much when they stood against the 
Persian host : the soldiers of Poland once knew they 
were right ; but after these struggles there came no 
unfolding years rich with the harvest of right and 
happiness ; but over all these Union graves the good 
result grows larger as the summer suns come and go. 
Should the past few years be an emblem of the com- 
ing time, all the prairies of the West and all the rose- 
gardens of the South and of the Pacific Coast can- 
not e'er long grow flowers enough for decorating in 
a fitting manner these soldier-beds in the Nation's 



THE CHARLESTON EARTHQUAKE 341 



sod. The glory of those lives and those deaths is an 
increasing splendor. As new States come into the 
Union ; come with all the arts and pursuits of peace; 
as the emancipated Africans advance in education 
and personal worth ; as the whole South steps forth 
in a new inspiration of soul, and as over all these 
scenes there waves one flag, saying, with a growing 
eloquence, "Secession and disunion are impossible," 
the memory of the battle-fields becomes more pre- 
cious, and more tears of gratitude should flow for 
their dead. When we turn from our own continent 
and mark the tumult in the lands of emperors, 
kings and queens ; mark the wrong, the suffering 
and the unrest which reach from St. Petersburgh 
across the Irish Sea, the present sorrow and the 
dark future of Europe invite us to revisit the tombs 
of our patriots and to strew lilies with yet fuller 
hands. Thus with the unfolding value of the Nation 
should all patriotic days reveal a greater excellence, 
and appeal more touchingly to each noble heart. 



THE CHARLESTON EARTHQUAKE. 

T. DeWitt Talmage, D.D. 

]\]OW, there may be in the audience many who 
* ^ are disposed to complain. Hardships have come 
upon them, and losses, and perhaps especial griefs 
have come upon them this summer, and they are 
more disposed to answer the question of the text in 
the negative. So I draw a contrast. Brooklyn — 
Charleston ! Oh, when you think of the sorrows of 



343 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



that cily, cannot you thank God for your homes? 
cannot you thank God for your privileges? cannot 
you thank God for the quiet of this holy Sabbath ? 
while in that city millionaire and beggar crouch to- 
gether in the open parks. I have been accustomed 
to create gratitude in my soul by going down 
among those who have not a comfortable home and 
who have not comfortable surroundings; and to-day 
compare your condition with the condition of the 
fifty thousand affrighted people in that sad city. 
What a time of trouble our world has had ever since 
by the hand of God it was bowled into space ! It is 
an epileptic world. Convulsion after convulsion. 
Frosts striking it with sledge-hammer of icebergs. 
Fires melting it with furnaces seven hundred times 
heated. Meteors darting by grazing it on one side 
— meteors darting by grazing it on the other side, 
and none of them slowing up for safety. Whole flotil- 
las, whole navies, whole argosies of worlds rushing 
past. It is an amazement to me that long ago it 
was not run down and destroyed. Why, our world 
is like a fishing-smack off the coast of Newfoundland, 
while the Etruria and the Umbria and the Great 
Eastern, whirl by. And then our world by sin has 
been smitten with internal disorders, and the ma- 
chinery of the world has all been damaged so that 
sometimes the furnaces burst and the walking-beams 
of the mountains are broken, and islands ship a sea, 
and this great hulk of a world is jarred with accidents 
that threaten its immediate demolition. Thirty-six 
earthquakes last year in the United States and Can- 



THE CHARLESTON EARTHQUAKE 343 



ada, and seven thousand earthquakes reported in the 
catalogues of the British Association in the two cen- 
turies. Long ago as Trajan goes to Antioch on a 
visit and, amid the splendors of a public reception, an 
earthquake meets him and it takes his life. At one 
o'clock on November 1, 1755, Lisbon, fair and beau- 
tiful — six minutes after sixty thousand perished, so 
that Voltaire, writing in regard to it, says for that 
region it was the day of judgment — nothing wanting 
but the trumpet. That vibration shaking the two 
hemispheres. And so in all the times, but especially 
in our own century. 

In 1 8 12, Caraccas was caught in the grip of an 
earthquake. In 1822, in Chili, one hundred thou- 
sand square miles by volcanic forces were upheaved 
to four and seven feet of permanent elevation. In 
1854 Japan felt the geological agony. Naples 
shaken in 1857 and Mexico in 1858. The capital 
of the Argentine Republic in 1861. Manilla terror- 
ized in 1863. The Hawaiian Islands by such forces 
upheaved and let down in 1871. Nevada shaken 
in 1 871 . Antioch in 1872. California in 1872. San 
Salvador in 1873. ^ n ^83, Ischia, the beautiful 
Italian watering-place, the home of historical remi- 
niscences and of all beautiful surroundings ; yonder, 
Naples, the paradise of art, the city, the island let 
down into the trough of the sea disappearing. A 
few months after, Java, the most fertile island in all 
the earth, mountain after mountain going down, 
and city after city, and that island which yields the 
healthiest beverage in all the world became the 



344 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



scene of the greatest disaster of the century. One 
hundred and twenty thousand people dying, dead. 
At the mouth of the Ganges, three islands ten years 
ago, convulsing in the land and cyclone in the air, 
and of three hundred and forty thousand population 
two hundred and fifteen thousand perished. " Oh,' ' 
we said, " we live in a land that will never be dis- 
turbed ; such volcanic forces cannot strike us, and 
even sometimes on the Pacific Coast there are dis- 
turbances, not on the Atlantic Coast." Then God 
comes in this last week and He shakes this whole 
continent. It is felt in San Francisco and it is felt 
in New York. God is shaking terribly the nations, 
and it seems to me there is a lesson which this 
pulpit and every pulpit ought to interpret for the 
people. God is teaching America, and He is teach- 
ing all nations that this world is a poor foundation 
on which to build. Oh, we thought if we had every- 
thing insured in the fire insurance companies all would 
be well. Where are the insurance companies that 
could help that Charleston calamity ? God is thun- 
dering from the heavens. " Build on the rock, the 
Rock of Ages." Build on the eternal God. That 
is the foundation that never can be shaken. Do not 
build on this earth. Set not your affections on 
things on earth. And yet the painter worships his 
picture, and the architect worships his building, and 
the merchant worships his enterprise, and we cling 
to this world ; but it is a very poor portion. Isaac 
Newton's dog, " Spot," destroys in a little while the 
manuscript that it took his master many years to 



THE CHARLESTON EARTHQUAKE 345 



create. A worm in the hulk of a vessel sinks the 
ship that was the pride of its builder. A child's 
hand effaces a painting that was to be immortal. A 
piece of costly sculpture, the work of genius, is 
dropped, and the grandest arches and the stanchest 
pyramids and the mightiest cities must come down. 
The time will come when Charleston and Chicago 
and New Orleans and Brooklyn and New York and 
Boston and London and Paris and Vienna and St. 
Petersburg and Pekin and Canton will be caught in 
what St. John in the Book of Revelation calls " a 
great earthquake." 

The world is a poor foundation on which to build. 
If the American people do not learn that lesson it 
will be bad for them. But, oh, it seems to me there 
comes a lesson of obligation to those suffering peo- 
ple. There is not a city on this continent, it seems 
to me, that has so many reasons for calling for the 
sympathy of the country to-day. Just think of it ! 
Have you counted up the scourges that have come 
upon this city ? First the scourge of war ; then in a 
few years the scourge of fire ; then in a few years 
the scourge of cholera ; last year the scourge of cy- 
clone, and now the scourge of earthquake. And 
the people do not want — God-bless-yous. All our 
prayers will not amount to anything unless accom- 
panied by positive benefaction. The pleading 
hands come up from the debris of that fallen city, 
saying: "We are hungry, give us bread; we are 
homeless, give us shelter ; we are sick, give us cor- 
dials." Palsied will be the ear that will not hear, 



346 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



and palsied will be the hand that will not help. I 
stand here to-day to plead for the hundreds of 
households that have been despoiled of their living. 
I plead in behalf of homes there, and some of us 
have enjoyed their hospitalities. I plead in behalf 
of children whose fathers have perished under the 
fallen walls. I plead in behalf of women whose 
hour of anguish has come, and there is no pillow 
and there is no roof. Aye, I plead in behalf of Him 
who said : " Inasmuch as ye did it to these, ye did it 
to Me." I know you will not turn your back upon 
this suffering. Let the officers of the church, as 
they go through these aisles, go slowly, remember- 
ing the amount they gather will decide whether some 
groaning men and women shall live or die. By so 
much as we expect mercy from the Lord in the last 
day, let us have mercy for others. Oh, Thou self- 
denying One of Gethsemane, drop upon us Thy 
Spirit ! 

SELF-SURRENDER TO GOD. 

Henry Elliott Mott. 

\1 7" HEN we speak of religion as being self-surren- 
der to God, we mean that human freedom 
consists in the frank, conscious, total, irreversible, 
glad surrender to Him in whom all the highest mo- 
tives which actuate humanity reside, and from 
whom they take their origin. The Lord Jesus rep- 
resents this central character to the world. Man 
has nothing that he did not receive. Our wills are 



SELF-SURRENDER TO GOD 



347 



given us, that in Him we might find them perfect 
and complete. 

Strong Son of God, immortal Love, 
Whom we that have not seen thy face, 
By faith, and faith alone, embrace, 

Believing where we cannot prove; 

Thou seemest human and divine, 
The highest, holiest manhood thou : 
Our wills are ours, we know not how ; 

Our wills are ours, to make them thine. 

We know very little of those forces which play 
upon and form our lives. When we come to think 
it over, one of the strangest things is that a man 
should attempt to direct himself. God is using 
countless influences to tell on us of which we are 
utterly ignorant. Our physical limitations should 
make us cautious. Whole registers of vibrations 
lie on either side of those which we have organs to 
appreciate. Countless pulsations of the ether too 
far for us to hear, and countless others too many for 
us to see, are on every hand. Why, when we ques- 
tion that God has left so much in the dark concern- 
ing our moral growth, do we not go further and 
wonder why He has hidden so many things from 
our senses and our reason? 

But, more than this, we should not be able to 
combine the forces if we did know them. What 
one of you all is sure he could do and would do the 
best for himself, if he knew what that best was ? 
Who among us has a will strong enough and a 
judgment clear enough to risk himself amid the 



348 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



cross-purposes of life, with the assurance that he 
will never falter in the choice of those ends and the 
means to them which are really noblest ? Then 
should it be according to thy mind ? Men often 
stand at the parting of the ways and ask this ques- 
tion : " Shall I have my way, or shall I take what I 
believe to be God's way ? " And shall I do this 
willingly and lovingly ? for I may have to whether 
or no. But shall I want to ? 

I commend to you to-day, as the supremest gift 
for the Christian life, the glad conviction : "All my 
times are in his hands." The experience of life 
may be to us one of two things — either discipline or 
punishment : and it is in one way to decide which 
it shall be. You may decide for yourself punish- 
ment, or you may transmute the identical experi- 
ence into discipline. Discipline and punishment 
are the same outward circumstances ; but they are 
discipline where the person bears them with the 
intent to find God's meaning and accept it. We 
may not see the reason why any especial event be- 
falls us. No more did the field-mouse whose house 
the Scotch poet rudely upturned with his plow 
understand why all his labor should pass in vain ; 
over whom, you will remember, the poet stops and 
muses, for he seemed to himself to know scarce 
more than this — 

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie 

of the ways of Providence. A little understanding 
with God would have made it easier for the poet. 



SELF-SURRENDER TO GOD 



349 



Not that he would have had an explanation for all 
things — perhaps least of all for some personal moral 
lapses. We have seen that man has not the facul- 
ties to grasp a complete explanation. But enough, 
I doubt not, would have been known to confirm his 
trust. We are thus in the midst of the discipline of 
life — if we are God's children, a discipline promised 
to be for our best good. It may make us hard and 
sour Christians, or kind and helpful ones ; it may 
make us morose and peevish and fretful, or calm 
and sweet and trustful — rested ourselves and resting 
others. 

Some palliation should be made for the conditions 
in which people are placed. The querulousness of 
some delicate, sensitive woman is balance and com- 
posure as compared with the repose of some whose 
nerves are as strong as whip-cords and their pulses 
throbbing like a machine. A woman whose system 
has been overburdened until her body is like an 
astral vase through which one can almost see the 
flower of her soul-life, may be censured by another 
whose whole existence is as bounding as a flesh-and- 
blood Hebe. Why, the one can no more under- 
stand the other than a steam whistle can compre- 
hend how an "^Eolian harp responds to the song of 
the troubadour wind." But I love to think how 
not far away from this worn and weary soul is the 
rest which remaineth. But perhaps you feel that 
your trials and discipline are out of proportion to 
your deserving. My friends, in the first place, you 
do not see the shattered frames and plowed-up fields 



35o 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



of your neighbors. And, then, it may be this is 
the only way you could learn the lesson to be 
taught. Others could learn without all this severity, 
but you could not. How often have I said to my- 
self : " There, that is the lesson God wants me to 
learn, and I have learned it ! " only to find, when he 
has taken his hand off, that I had not learned it at 
all. Oh, let us be glad if, by the very severity of 
the discipline, God is proving his love to us. Oft- 
times the hardest experiences result in the strongest 
or sweetest characters. It has been told of a Ger- 
man baron of the Middle Ages that he had wires 
strung across a chasm from a castle on one side to 
a castle on the other. When the air was still, or 
during a slight breeze, no sound was heard. But 
when a storm arose, and the winds came sweeping 
down the valley in their fury, then awaked the 
slumbering tones, and this giant ^Eolian harp gave 
off a certain wild and daring music upon the 
troubled air. This may be a monkish legend — I 
do not know ; but well I know there is many a soul 
that never responds to the divine meaning until 
beaten upon by mighty providences. 

Should it be according to thy mind? Nay, my 
dear ones, but according to His mind. So, then, in 
this Christian life, give up your wills at once to His. 
Let no lurking opposition, like a splinter in the 
flesh, fester and corrode. We stand surrounded 
by these influences — the few known, the many un- 
known — and hear the question whispered from out 
the twilight that hems us in. " Should it be accord- 



A FIELD FOR COURAGE 



351 



ing to thy mind ? " And we answer : " Not so, 
dear Lord ! I have given that all up. Here I give 
myself to thee ; take me as 1 am." And from such 
an answer, honestly made and deeply meant, come 
rest and peace. The Lord has us in His keeping. 
We do not see Him, we cannot really hear Him, in 
the viewless, voiceless air. All is dark when we 
have left the earth behind a very little way. Al- 
though the astronomer's lens has pushed the stars 
further back than they once seemed, still, at no 
great distance, and long before we reach to heaven, 
the sky is a solid dome and shuts us in. But He is 
behind there : for all those experiences which enter 
into the warp and woof of life He cares ; and we are 
at rest, for we know how — 

Out of darkness come the hands 

That reach through nature molding men. 

CARE PROVIDING A FIELD FOR 
COURAGE. 

James Edward Wright. 

O OMETIMES the oppressed heart cries out for a 
^ country where drought, famine and pestilence 
are unknown, where destructive floods and whirl- 
winds and conflagrations and earthquakes never 
come, where accidents do not maim and kill, and 
where there is no untimely frost or untimely death 
— a country where life has a sweet, gentle, even 
flow, undisturbed by those sudden alarms and over- 
throws which so often mar our happiness here* 



352 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



But let us ask ourselves, Would such a condition 
afford beings like ourselves a greater measure of 
happiness than we now enjoy? Before we turn the 
hasty, ill-considered wish into a serious longing and 
a prayer, let us bethink ourselves of what the change 
would involve, what would be the result if the 
world ceased to present uncertainties, perils, losses, 
destructions, along our course? Life would flow 
very evenly, true (if, indeed, it flowed at all), if it 
were not utterly stagnant and unwholesome ; but 
would it flow happily toward any grand issue ? No 
one would then guard against disease. There would 
be no advance in sanitary science, no increase of 
knowledge of hygienic laws, no improvement in the 
theory or practice of medicine. No one would 
apply his powers to the invention of life-saving ap- 
paratus, whether lamp or air-brake or automatic 
coupling or valve or boat. No one would seek to 
discover valuable specifics for disease or anaesthetics. 
There would be no call for such things. And who 
will toil, unless stimulated by some necessity or 
some demand? No one would study the weatlu r 
signs or be careful to sow his seed with promptness 
at the right season. Why should one worry him- 
self? It makes no difference: delays are not dan- 
gerous. There is no such thing as danger in the 
estate imagined. There is no such thing as failure 
or loss or famine or death. 

No one would summon up a manly courage to 
meet and overcome obstacles. There would be no 
obstacles. "About the highest exhibition of power 



A FIELD FOR COURAGE 



353 



obtained or obtainable by man is discovered in the 
command or sovereign mind-grapple he learns how 
to maintain over causes infinitely above him, as re- 
spects their physical efficiency," says a profound 
thinker. But all this noble development and mani- 
festation of courage would fail without the stimulus 
of peril — " the institute of danger," this writer calls 
it. No one in this smooth and softly cushioned 
world of our thought would exhibit heroism. Hero- 
ism is not nourished where only lullabies and love- 
songs are sung. " Plenty and peace breed," not 
heroes, but " cowards," the great dramatist assures 
us. 

There would be little stanch determined purpose 
and vigor of will in the supposed Utopia — for 
moral qualities, as well as plants, must have a soil in 
which to grow ; and the proper soil would be want- 
ing, for will grows strong by exercise against that 
which resists. John Weiss has told very impres- 
sively how the Dutch character was formed — how 
that " people was prepared to maintain liberty of 
thought and worship. A poor Frisian race was 
selected, and kept for centuries up to its knees in 
the marshes through which the Rhine emptied and 
lost itself. Here it lived in continual conflict with 
the Northern Ocean, forced literally to hold the tide 
at arm's length, while a few acres of dry land might 
yield a scanty subsistence. . . . For centuries 
they appeared to be doing nothing but building and 
repairing dikes, when, really, they were constructing 
a national will and persistency which was a dike for 

Lamps of the Temple— 23 



354 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



tyranny to lash in vain. By keeping out the water, 
they trained themselves to keep out the more insid- 
ious tide of bigotry and spiritual death." But 
where nothing threatens, where there is no demand 
for persistent energy and unfaltering resolution, 
will the sturdy will appear? 

Fortitude is one of the noblest traits of a grand 
character. But, in the summerland for which our 
weakness sometimes cries, there would be no forti- 
tude ; for the very conditions of its existence would 
be absent. Fortitude can be shown only among 
pains and perils. Neither would forecast be known 
there — that planning for the future, and calculating 
of possibilities, and wise, discriminating adaptation 
of means to ends with which we are familiar; for 
the uncertain element would be eliminated from life. 
And thus the most effectual veto conceivable would 
be interposed against all progress. This would be 
true of progress in the moral as well as in the material 
realm. For no one would receive the moral train- 
ing which now comes to us as we suffer the painful 
consequences of wrong-doing and neglect. "Brew- 
ing always in his danger element from childhood 
onward, man learns to be, in his very habit," says 
Dr. Bushnell, "a prudent, foreseeing creature ; and, 
being thus inducted into the care of himself as 
respects the life and life interests of his body, it is 
also to be seen whether he will take up in like faith- 
ful caution a right self-care of his moral and respon- 
sible nature. . . . Suppose that our life had been 
set on a footing of perfect inviolable security ; that 



A FIELD FOR COURAGE 



355 



every power of nature had been cushioned, so to 
speak, so as never to give a blow ; that the fires had 
been softened by infusions of dew, and the snows 
by mixtures of wool ; that the lightnings had brought 
their conductors with them and the thunders sung 
their explosions on ^Eolian harps — in a word, that 
no living man ever scented the possibility of danger 
or even conceived what it is. How totally unpre- 
pared is he, thus, for anything that can be called 
responsibility ! He does not even know what a 
critical thing is, much less how to take care of him- 
self in a matter as critical as duty, under a peril as 
momentous as the retributions of immortal wrong." 

Then, too, in the smooth soft land of our dream, 
how great would be the deficiency of the tender and 
beautiful as well as the strong and commanding ele- 
ments of character ! The delicate toning which 
experience of sorrow gives to character would be 
sought in vain. It is around the irritating grain of 
sand that the secretions gather, which form the 
lustrous pearl. And, in like manner, it is when 
something hurts that patience and gentleness and 
forbearance and trust and hope come forth in their 
beauty in human hearts. The new world created 
in our foolish wish would contain none of those 
graces developed out of a consciousness of our 
mutual dependence, no self-sacrifice, no gratitude, 
none of the warm, soft lines of compassion, pity, 
sympathy. Would it, indeed, think you, would 
such a world be happier or more desirable than our 
present estate ? I cannot believe it. I see how 



356 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



heavy burdens bow men to the earth ; I see their 
tears falling in their hours of grief ; I see them 
writhing in pain, cowering under dreadful appre- 
hensions, crushed under the avalanche of misfor- 
tune, but also learning lessons in this hard school 
which could be taught no otherwise, spurred to in- 
crease of effort, whipped into new search for knowl- 
edge, making ever fresh conquests with the fresh 
demands upon body and brain, enriched with 
affections which would know no play save for the 
experience together of common sorrows and com- 
mon needs — and my well-considered verdict con- 
tradicts the hasty cry of my moment of pain or 
disappointment. 

My thought goes back to the old story from 
which Mr. William Gannett draws such a helpful 
and comforting moral ; and I say, by as much as 
Israel ranks higher than Jacob — "the prince with 
God " than the " Supplanter," by so much the condi- 
tions where endurance, conflict, struggle, are invited 
and necessitated are more desirable than the condi- 
tions which, however alluring to unthinking self- 
indulgence, must result in stagnation, retrogression 
and decay. Jacob may suffer in the wrestling, but 
he will not let his antagonist go until he extorts a 
blessing from him, and so he gains the victory ; and 
when the night is over, although he finds himself 
maimed, he finds himself also crowned and the pos- 
sessor of a nobility that he never knew before. 
The Old Testament thus tells in a fascinating story 
what the New Testament condenses into a phrase : 



A FIELD FOR COURAGE 



357 



" Though our outward man perish, yet the inward 
man is renewed day by day." And in this phrase 
we find the Apostle Paul welcoming exultantly the 
external decay and loss whose results are spiritual 
blessing and gain. Listen to the poetry in prose of 
James Martineau : " Let there be no arrow by 
night, no malady by day, let the three-score years 
and ten be assured to the last hour, and the eyes 
fall punctually asleep with the setting sun entered 
on the calendar ; and would anything tender and 
divine hang around this death by the clock? No 
watchful love could hover around the invulnerable : 
they might go forth on their enterprise alone, and 
be forgotten. . . Among ourselves, it would be 
a shallow love that was without its fear ; for the 
very goodness and sanctity to which we look up are 
noble because secured by no necessity. ... Of 
our moral nature, it is the very essence that is given 
to meet alternatives ; of our affections, that they 
have to live in the actual with eye upon the possi- 
ble ; and the whole wisdom and magnanimity of life 
consist in a will conformed to what is, with a heart 
ready for what is not. Unless all character is to 
perish, the contingencies must stay. ... In 
trying, then, to eliminate uncertainty, we strive, 
through the instinct of the understanding and the 
will' to destroy the very discipline appointed for the 
conscience and affections. " 

Ah, yes, my friends, deploring the sadness of our 
lot, we are like those whose despair at the crucifix- 
ion of their loved Master found vent in the words, 



358 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



"We hoped that it was he who should redeem Israel." 
Alas ! they did not, could not see, that the very 
event which dashed all their hopes to the ground 
was the greatest means of the desired redemption. 
And so we discard Mill's conclusion as lame and 
unsatisfactory, and turn aside from Schopenhauer's 
wretched fling at the universe with abhorrence, and 
hold fast to the Christian faith, that the infinite 
Father, almighty, and all-loving, doeth all things 
well, as the belief which is at once most comfort- 
ing, most sustaining, and most reasonable. 

One adequate support 
For the calamities of mortal life 
Exists, one only : an assured belief 
That the procession of our fate, howe'er 
Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being 
Of infinite benevolence and power, 
Whose everlasting purposes embrace 
All accidents, converting them to good. 



CHRIST'S CHANGELESS LOVE. 

John Adams, D.D. 

T T E loved and He loveth us. Human affection is 
* not always thus constant. It can and does 
change greatly. Many a bleeding, broken heart 
to-day can testify to the failure and the fickleness 
of earthly love. But here there is no reason or room 
for any such disappointment and sorrow. Christ 
loved His people when, in eternity, He undertook 
the work of their salvation, setting them as a seal 
upon His heart, as a seal upon His arm. He loved 



CHRIST'S CHANGELESS LOVE 



359 



them when in the fulness of time He came down to 
this world and shed His blood as their ransom. He 
loved them when in the day of His power He sent 
His Spirit into their hearts, and laid them as believ- 
ing penitents at the foot of the Cross. He loves 
them still, as the text declares, and that is wonder- 
ful. We can imagine one fixing his regards on 
an unworthy — even on a repulsive — object. The 
strange affection may flow out in the way of confer- 
ring all sorts of favors on, and making all sorts of 
sacrifices for, that object. But if, after such un- 
merited kindness, the only return made should be 
forgetfulness and ingratitude, if there should be an 
utter absence of any sign of improvement and any 
sense of obligation, would not the effect certainly be 
a cooling down of the love, its being displaced by 
indifference, quite possibly by dislike, aversion? 
Why, mere lapse of time has a marvellous influence 
in weakening the strength, chilling the warmth of 
human affection. But there is nothing like this in 
Christ's case. Who can tell how much He suffers 
at the hands of His people? How unthankful and 
rebellious are they ! How do they forsake instead 
of following Him, how do they seek their own 
things in preference to His ! They present Him 
under a false aspect to the world, and hinder rather 
than help forward the extension of His kingdom. 
But still He forgives, restores, and keeps them, for 
His love is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. 

No doubt there are sometimes appearances to the 
contrary. He withdraws from His people, hides 



360 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



His face from them, so that they walk in darkness, 
and feel as if they were utterly forsaken. They say : 
" Hath the Lord forgotten to be gracious? Hath 
He in anger shut up His tender mercies?" He 
sends them sore trials, dries up their comforts, cuts 
down their supports. His dealings look like signs 
of displeasure, even like strokes of vengeance. The 
condition of the worldly and the wicked is often far 
more favorable. The sun of prosperity shines on 
them, and their good things abound. But there is 
no proof here that His love is either gone or weak- 
ened. Behind the frowning providence there is still 
a smiling face. The clouds temporarily obscure, 
but they do not extinguish, or even really diminish, 
the light of heaven. For wise purposes — it may be 
to arouse His own people to a sense of backsliding, 
to startle them on the brink of the precipice, and so 
bring them again to the foot of the Cross — He be- 
comes for the time a wilderness to them, a God that 
hideth Himself. A father does not hate his child 
because he chastises him ; quite the reverse. He 
thus shows that his love is a wise and not a foolish 
one ; that he has the real good of the object of it at 
heart, that he would rather wound his son, and be 
misjudged for doing it, than allow that son to run 
on in sin and destroy himself. And so it will ever 
be. The love has stood true during all the past, 
and it will not fail in all the future. Who, then, 
shall separate us from it ? In the exulting language 
of the Apostle, we may say, " For I am persuaded 
that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principal 



CHRIST'S CHANGELESS LOVE 



36l 



ities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to 
come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature 
shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 

Brethren, I have directed your attention to the 
love of Christ to His people under the threefold 
aspect in which it is here presented — absolutely 
sovereign, immeasurably great, and unchangeably 
constant. When John contemplated it he was filled 
with adoring wonder. He felt that everything was 
to be ascribed, everything given to Christ in return. 
All that the world contained was too little to lay at 
His feet as a tribute of gratitude and praise. So he 
exclaimed, " Unto Him that loved us," " be glory 
and dominion for ever and ever." We are met to- 
day, brethren, in extremely interesting circumstances. 
I, for one, greatly rejoice that an enterprise so re- 
cently begun, and begun amidst not a few difficul- 
ties, has in so short a time been crowned with so 
large a measure of success. We owe the result, no 
doubt, to many willing hearts and hands, but very 
specially under God to His servant whom He sent 
to be the minister of this congregation. And now 
that we have built the sanctuary in which it is our 
privilege to worship to-day for the first time, I ask 
for whom have we reared it ? To whom are we 
dedicating it as a completed structure ? What 
should we write over its portals were we to write 
anything ? Would there be any words more appro- 
priate than those of the text, " Unto Him that 
loved us?" I trust that those who have given 



362 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



money for its erection, and those who have given 
labor, have done it in not a few cases out of a feel- 
ing of gratitude, out of a sense of obligation to 
Christ ; have done it under the constraining influ- 
ence of His love, which they have come to under- 
stand and experience, so that it is the outcome of 
what He has wrought in their souls, a tangible ex- 
pression of the spirit which animated John when he 
exclaimed, " Unto Him that loved us." 

But springing from such a source, what is the 
great purpose for which this church is designed ? 
What is the work that is to be carried on within its 
walls, and also without them, by influences proceed- 
ing from the ministrations here ? Is not the setting 
forth, the publishing and commending of the love 
of Christ ? Is not this to be His servant's grand 
theme Sabbath after Sabbath ? While the Saviour's 
love already embraces a great multitude, it has still 
wider arms, and is ready to take in the thousands, 
millions, who are perishing for lack of knowledge, 
going blindly down to a dark eternity. The busi- 
ness of this pulpit will be to proclaim the largeness 
and freeness of the love ; to invite, beseech sinners, 
even the chief, to yield themselves to its influence, 
and taste its sweetness, and enter into possession of 
the priceless blessings which it brings. Oh, that 
many may hear and live, may come and be washed 
from their filthiness in the atoning blood ; may cast 
away their rags and put on the garments of a royal 
priesthood. Not only will it be the business and 
delight of God's servant to hold up this love to all, 



A PLEA FOR MISSIONS 



363 



but very specially to commend it to those who have 
experienced in some measure its power and precious- 
ness. They need to be taught what they owe to it, 
and how they should evidence their sense of obliga- 
tion, their feelings of gratitude. The Lord has done 
great things for them, and should they not be will- 
ing to give, to labor, even to suffer for His sake? 
Should not all they have and are be consecrated to 
His service and glory? Their duty, their privilege 
in this respect must be pressed continually on their 
attention, so that what they owe unto Him that 
loved them may not be withheld, as, alas ! it too 
often is by many. 

God grant that while His servant is thus speaking 
in His name Divine power may come down from 
Sabbath to Sabbath, sweeping away all barriers and 
opening a way for the entrance of Christ's love into 
stout and stubborn hearts. May there be here not 
only a plentiful sowing, but a corresponding reaping ! 
May we not say that in the dense population 
around this church, and in the ready access which 
those find here who are seeking the spiritual good 
of their fellows, the fields are white already to the 
harvest ? 

A PLEA FOR MISSIONS. 

Dr. Wayland. 

^^/"E do believe, that God so loved the world that 
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in him should not perish, but have ever-, 
lasting life. Our object is to convey to those who 



3 6 4 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



are perishing the news of this salvation. It is to 
furnish every family upon the face of the whole earth 
with the Word of God written in its own language, 
and to send to every neighborhood a preacher of 
the cross of Christ. Our object will not be accom- 
plished until every idol temple shall have been 
utterly abolished, and a temple of Jehovah erected 
in its room ; until this earth, instead of being a 
theater on which immortal beings are preparing by 
crime for eternal condemnation, shall become one 
universal temple, in which the children of men are 
learning the anthems of the blessed above, and be- 
coming meet to join the general assembly and 
church of the first born, whose names are written in 
heaven. Our design will not be completed until 

One song employs all nations, and all cry, 
"Worthy the lamb, for he was slain for us ;" 
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks 
Shout to each other ; and the mountain tops 
From distant mountains catch the flying joy ; 
Till, nation after nation caught the strain, 
Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round. 

The object of the missionary enterprise embraces 
every child of Adam. It is vast as the race to 
whom its operations are of necessity limited. It 
would confer upon every individual on earth all that 
intellectual or moral cultivation can bestow. It 
would rescue a world from the indignation and 
wrath, tribulation and anguish, reserved for every son 
of man that doeth evil, and give it a title to glory, 
honor, and immortality. You see, then, that our 



A PLEA FOR MISSIONS 



365 



object is, not only to affect every individual of the 
species, but to affect him in the momentous ex- 
tremes of infinite happiness and infinite woe. And 
now, we ask, what object, ever undertaken by man, 
can compare with this same design of evangelizing 
the world ? Patriotism itself fades away before it, 
and acknowledges the supremacy of an enterprise, 
which seizes, with so strong a grasp, upon both the 
temporal and eternal destinies of the whole family 
of man. 

And now, my hearers, deliberately consider the 
nature of the missionary enterprise. Reflect upon 
the dignity of its object ; the high moral and intel- 
lectual powers which are to be called forth in its ex- 
ecution ; the simplicity, benevolence, and efficacy, 
of the means by which all this is to be achieved ; 
and we ask you, Does not every other enterprise, 
to which man ever put forth his strength, dwindle 
into insignificance before that of preaching Christ 
crucified to a lost and perishing world ? 

Engaged in such an object, and supported by 
such an assurance, you may readily suppose, we can 
very well bear the contempt of those who would 
point at us the finger of scorn. It is written, " In 
the last days there shall be scoffers." We regret 
that it should be so. We regret that men should 
oppose an enterprise, of which the chief object is to 
turn sinners unto holiness. We pity them, and we 
will pray for them. For we consider their situation 
far other than enviable. We recollect that it was 
once said by the Divine Missionary, to the first 



3 66 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



band which he commissioned, " He that despiseth you 
despiseth Me, and he that despiseth Me despiseth 
Him that sent Me." So that this very contempt 
may, at last, involve them in a controversy infinitely 
more serious than they at present anticipate. The 
reviler of missions, and the missionary of the cross, 
must both stand before the judgment seat of Him 
who said, " Go ye into all the world, and preach the 
Gospel to every creature." It is affecting to think, 
that, whilst the one, surrounded by the nation who, 
through his instrumentality, have been rescued 
from everlasting death shall receive the plaudit, 
"Well done, good and faithful servant ! " the other 
may be numbered among those despisers, who 
wonder and perish. " Oh, that they might know, 
even in this their day, the things which belong 
to their peace, before they are hidden from their 
eyes ! " 

You can also easily perceive how it is that we are 
not soon disheartened by those who tell us of the 
difficulties, nay, the hopelessness of our undertak- 
ing. They may point us to countries once the seat 
of the church, now overspread with Mohammedan 
delusion ; or, bidding us look at nations, who once 
believed as we do, now contending for what we con- 
sider fatal error, they may assure us that our cause 
is declining. To all this we have two answers. 
First, the assumption that our cause is declining, is 
utterly gratuitous. We think it not difficult to 
prove, that the distinctive principles we so much 
v-nerate, never swayed so powerful an influence 



A PLEA FOR MISSIONS 



over the destinies of the human race as at this very 
moment. Point us to those nations of the earth, to 
whom moral and intellectual cultivation, inexhaus- 
tible resources, progress in arts, and sagacity in coun- 
cil, have assigned the highest rank in political im- 
portance, and you point us to nations whose relig- 
ious opinions are most closely allied to those we 
cherish. Besides when was there a period, since the 
days of the Apostles, in which so many converts 
have been made to these principles, as have been 
made, both from Christian and Pagan nations, with- 
in the last five-and-twenty years? Never did the 
people of the saints of the Most High look so much 
like going forth, in serious earnest, to take posses- 
sion of the kingdom, and dominion, and the greatness 
of the kingdom, under the whole heaven, as at the 
present day. We see, then, nothing in the signs of 
the times which forebodes a failure, but everything 
which promises that our undertaking will prosper. 
But, secondly, suppose the cause did seem declining, 
we should see no reason to relax our exertions ; 
for Jesus Christ has said, " Preach the Gospel to 
every creature." Appearances, whether prosperous 
or adverse, alter not the obligation to obey a posi- 
tive command of Almighty God. 

Again, suppose all that is affirmed were true. 
If it must be, let it be. Let the dark cloud of infi- 
delity overspread Europe, cross the ocean, and 
cover our own beloved land. Let nation after 
nation swerve from the faith. Let iniquity abound, 
and the love of many wax cold, even until there is on 



3 68 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



the face of the earth but one pure church of our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. All we ask is, that 
we may be members of that one church. God grant 
that we may throw ourselves into this Thermopylae 
of the moral universe. 

But, even then, we should have no fear that the 
church of God would be exterminated. We would 
call to remembrance the years of the right hand of 
the Most High. We would recollect there was once 
a time when the whole church of Christ not only 
could be, but actually was, gathered with one accord 
in one place. It was then that that place was 
shaken as with a rushing, mighty wind, and they 
were all filled with the Holy Ghost. That same day 
three thousand were added to the Lord. Soon we 
hear they have filled Jerusalem with their doctrine. 
The church has commenced her march. Samaria has 
with one accord believed the Gospel. Antioch has 
become obedient to the faith. The name of Christ 
has been proclaimed throughout Asia Minor. The 
temples of the gods, as though smitten by an invisi- 
ble hand, are deserted. The citizens of Ephesus 
cry out in despair, " Great is Diana of the Ephe- 
sians!" Licentious Corinth is purified by the 
preaching of Christ crucified. Persecution puts 
forth her arm to arrest the spreading "supersti- 
tion." But the progress of the faith cannot be 
stayed. The church of God advances unhurt, 
amidst rocks and dungeons, persecutions and death ; 
yea, " smiles at the drawn dagger, and defies its 
point." She has entered Italy, and appears before 



THE SACRED SCRIPTURES 



369 



the walls of the Eternal City. Idolatry falls pros- 
trate at her approach. Her ensigns float in triumph 
over the capitol. She has placed upon her brow 
the diadem of the Caesars ! 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE SACRED 
SCRIPTURES. 



S to the powerful, I had almost said miraculous, 



effect of the Sacred Scriptures, there can no 
longer be a doubt in the mind of any one on whom 
fact can make an impression. That the truths of 
the Bible have the power of awakening an intense 
moral feeling in man under every variety of charac- 
ter, learned or ignorant, civilized or savage ; that 
they make bad men good, and send a pulse of health- 
ful feeling through all the domestic, civil, and social 
relations ; that they teach men to love right, to hate 
wrong, and to seek each other's welfare, as the chil- 
dren of one common parent ; that they control the 
baleful passions of the human heart, and thus make 
men proficients in the science of self-government ; 
and, finally, that they teach him to aspire after a 
conformity to a Being of infinite holiness, and fill 
him with hopes infinitely more purifying, more ex- 
alting, more suited to his nature, than any other, 
which this world has ever known, — are facts incon- 
trovertible as the laws of philosophy, or the demon- 
strations of mathematics. Evidence in support of 
all this can be brought from every age, in the 



Dr. Wayland. 




Lamps of the Temple — 24 



37o 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



history of man since there has been a revelation from 
God on earth. We see the proof of it everywhere 
around us. There is scarcely a neighborhood in 
our country, where the Bible is circulated, in which 
we cannot point you to a very considerable portion 
of its population, whom its truths have reclaimed 
from the practice of vice, and taught the practice of 
whatsoever things are pure, and honest, and just, 
and of good report. 

That this distinctive and peculiar effect is pro- 
duced upon every man to whom the Gospel is 
announced, we pretend not to affirm. But we do 
affirm, that, besides producing this special renova- 
tion, to which we have alluded, upon a part, it, in a 
most remarkable degree, elevates the tone of moral 
feeling throughout the whole community. Wher- 
ever the Bible is freely circulated, and its doctrines 
carried home to the understandings of men, the 
aspect of society is altered ; the frequency of crime 
is diminished; men begin to love justice, and to 
administer it by law ; and a virtuous public opinion, 
that strongest safeguard of right, spreads over a 
nation the shield of its invisible protection. Wher- 
ever it has faithfully been brought to bear upon the 
human heart, even under most unpromising circum- 
stances, it has, within a single generation, revolu- 
tionized the whole structure of society ; and thus 
within a few years, done more for men than all 
other means have for ages accomplished without it. 
For proof of all this, I need only refer you to the 
effects of the Gospel in Greenland, or in South 



THE SACRED SCRIPTURES 



371 



Africa, in the Society Islands, or even among the 
aborigines of our own country. 

But. before we leave this part of the subject, it 
may be well to pause for a moment, and inquire 
whether, in addition to its moral efficacy, the Bible 
may not exert a powerful influence upon the intel- 
lectual character of man. 

And here it is scarcely necessary that I should 
remark, that, of all the books with which, since the 
invention of writing, this world has been deluged, 
the number of those is very small which have 
produced any perceptible effect on the mass of 
human character. By far the greater part have 
been, even by their cotemporaries, unnoticed and 
unknown. Not many a one has made its little mark 
upon the generation that produced it, though it 
sunk with that generation to utter forgetfulness. 
But, after the ceaseless toil of six thousand years, 
how few have been the works, the adamantine basis 
of whose reputation has stood unhurt amid the fluc- 
tuations of time, and whose impression can be traced 
through successive centuries, on the history of our 
species. 

When, however, such a work appears, its effects 
are absolutely incalculable ; and such a work, you 
are aware, is the Iliad OF Homer. Who can esti- 
mate the results produced by the incomparable efforts 
of a single mind ? Who can tell what Greece owes to 
this first-born of song? Her breathing marbles, her 
solemn temples, her unrivalled eloquence, and her 
matchless verse, all point us to that transcendent 



372 



LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 



genius, who, by the very splendor of his own efful- 
gence, woke the human intellect from the slumber 
of ages. It was Homer who gave laws to the 
artist ; it was Homer who inspired the poet ; it was 
Homer who thundered in the senate ; and, more 
than all, it was Homer who was sung by the people ; 
and hence a nation was cast into the mould of one 
mighty mind, and the land of the Iliad became the 
region of taste, the birthplace of the arts. 

Nor was this influence confined within the limits 
of Greece. Long after the sceptre of empire had 
passed westward, Genius still held her court on the 
banks of the Ilyssus, and from the country of Homer 
gave laws to the world. The light, which the 
blind old man of Scio had kindled in Greece, shed 
its radiance over Italy ; and thus did he awaken a 
second nation into intellectual existence. And we 
may form some idea of the power which this one 
work has to the present day exerted over the mind 
of man, by remarking, that " nation after nation, 
and century after century, has been able to do little 
more than transpose his incidents, new-name his 
characters, and paraphrase his sentiments." 

But, considered simply as an intellectual produc- 
tion, who will compare the poems of Homer with 
the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament ? 
Where in the Iliad shall we find simplicity and 
pathos which shall vie with the narrative of Moses, 
or maxims of conduct to equal in wisdom the Pro- 
verbs of Solomon, or sublimity which does not fade 
away before the conceptions of Job or David, of 



THE SACRED SCRIPTURES 



373 



Isaiah or St. John ? But I cannot pursue this com- 
parison. I feel that it is doing wrong to the mind 
which dictated the Iliad, and to those other mighty 
intellects on whom the light of the holy oracles 
never shone. Who that has read his poem has 
not observed how he strove in vain to give dignity 
to the mythology of his time? Who has not seen 
how the religion of his country, unable to support 
the flight of his imagination, sunk powerless beneath 
him? It is the unseen world, where the master 
spirits of our race breathe freely, and are at home ; 
and it is mournful to behold the intellect of Homer 
striving to free itself from the conceptions of mate- 
rialism, and then sinking down in hopeless despair, 
to weave ideal tales about Jupiter and Juno, Apollo 
and Diana. But the difficulties under which he 
labored are abundantly illustrated by the fact, that 
the light, which he poured upon the human intel- 
lect, taught other ages how unworthy was the relig- 
ion of his day of the man who was compelled to 
use it. " It seems to me," says Longinus, " that 
Homer, when he describes dissensions, jealousies, 
tears, imprisonments, and other afflictions to his 
deities, hath, as much as was in his power, made the 
men of the Iliad gods, and the gods men. To man, 
when afflicted, death is the termination of evils ; 
but he hath made not only the nature, but the 
miseries of the gods eternal." 

If, then, so great results have flowed from this 
one effort of a single mind, what may we not ex- 
pect from the combined efforts of several, at least 



374 LAMPS OF THE TEMPLE 

his equals in power over the human heart ? If that 
one genius, though groping in the thick darkness 
of absurd idolatry, wrought so glorious a transfor- 
mation in the character of his countrymen, what 
may we not look for from the universal dissemina- 
tion of those writings, on whose authors was poured 
the full splendor of eternal truth ? If unassisted 
human nature, spellbound by a childish mythology, 
have done so much, what may we not hope for 
from the supernatural efforts of preeminent genius, 
which spake as it was moved by the Holy Ghost ? 



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